Sermon Tone Analysis

2nd hand knowledge vs. experience- It is one thing to be told how beautiful Devil’s Lake is in the fall.

I can show you pictures and tell you all about it.

But it just doesn’t do it justice.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but the experience of seeing the trees and the lake and the rocks is breathtaking.

The same is true of God.

And this is the message that Job wishes for us to understand today.

Hearing about God second hand is one thing, seeing Him personally through eyes of experience is beautiful and majestic and full off worship.

To Review:

Indictment #1 (Job 38:1-40:2)- Job presumed to have sufficient knowledge of the facts to bring God’s ways and character into question.

Answer #1 (Job 40:3-5)- Job concedes—no rebuttal, no self-defense.

It was good and right for Job to remain silent.

His silence indicated that his heart was in the right place, but Job still has more that he needs to say.

And so God bring indictment #2.

Indictment #2 (Job 40:6-41:34)- Job defended his own righteousness at the expense of God’s righteousness

Will you put me in the wrong?

Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?

Answer #2 (Job 42:1-6)- Job bows before God—full retraction and repentance.

I believe that Job 42:1-6 are pivotal verses in understanding the message of the book of Job.

If you don’t get what is going on in Job’s heart in these six verse you miss the entire point of the book.

If you had to summarize the book of Job in one word what would it be?

Many people might use the word “suffering.”

And it is true that we learn a lot about the righteous person suffering “unjustly.”

But I don’t think that is the point of the book of Job.

The suffering that God allowed Job to go through was simply the fuel that moved the vehicle, but it was not the final destination.

If I had to summarize the book of Job in one word it would be this, “relationship.”

At its core, Job is about God and you.

It is about how you see God, how you understand Him, how you trust Him.

It is about a relationship between a man, or a woman, or a child, and God.

From these six verses we discover something very important about Job- he is not the same man he use to be.

He has grown in his faith in some very significant ways.

Job has just come face to face with God.

With God’s might and insight, with His infinity and His wisdom, with His majesty, and sovereignty, and freedom, and His omnipotence.

This is more than enough to humble Job into the dust (as we will see in a moment).

But side by side with God’s majesty and awe Job has also seen God’s compassion and His goodness.

And it the combination of the majesty of God and the grace of God that has awakened Job’s love for and submission to God in way that Job has never experienced before.

Job is not ready for healing, he is ready for repentance and trust, because He has truly seen God.

These six verses are all about growth and relationship with God.

If you, believer, desire to grow in your relationship with God as Job did, then two actions are required.

I.

If you would respond to God as Job did you must SEE God as Job saw Him.

How did Job see God?

A. God is Sovereign and Free (42:2)

Now I “know”- that which is understood much more deeply, to understand the significance of the thing.

Job’s knows something on a level that he did not previously understand.

And what did Job know?

You God can do every thing.

This may sound like a statement of God’s omnipotence.

God you have the strength to do anything.

But the second line (in parallel with the first) clarifies Job’s meaning.

And that no thought can be withed from you.

Job is not confessing God’s power, but God’s sovereignty.

His ability to do anything He chooses and his freedom to do everything He purposes.

I know that you can do all things (i.e., anything you want); No thought can be withed from you… the idea of this is your thoughts cannot be thwarted, Your purposes impeded, Your decisions hindered.

So what exactly is Job seeing as true about God, in a way that he previously did not understand?

God not only can do anything He chooses; He actually does do anything He chooses.

What God purposes or wills God does.

He is sovereign and free to make certain His will.

Here Job is telling God that he heard and understood God’s speeches.

Do you remember God’s main point in discussion leviathan?

Who has first given anything to Me that I should be obliged to repay him?

Everything under the whole heaven is Mine!

This was God’s whole point with leviathan.

Earlier on in God’s argument he told Job to put on his majesty and beauty and strength and cast down the wicked and bring judgment on those who deserve it.

And oh, by the way why don’t you start with two of my creatures- behemoth and leviathan.

Oh, you can’t even handle a mere beast?

You don’t have the power and the wisdom and the majesty and the ability to do that?

Then what makes you think you can win an argument with their Creator.

“Anyone who cannot undertake God’s works has no right to undermine God’s ways.

And anyone who trembles at the sight of fierce beasts is unwise in boldly contending with the beasts’ Maker.”

That is why Job acknowledges God’s undiluted right and ability to do whatever He purposes or pleases.

Job sees God in a way that he previously could never have seen God, because His theology was bad.

His thinking about God was wrong, and so His relationship with God suffered.

He even went as far as implying that God was not righteous and just in His treatment of Job.

But now, through the experience of suffering, and further revelation from God. Job sees the truth and he understands it at a whole different level, because He not only knows but he has experienced this truth- that God is sovereign and free.

But He is also benevolent- He is good- If He cares for small little goats, how much more does He care for me?

So, as Job understood God’s grace and love and mercy, Job trusted whole heatedly in God’s will, in God’s sovereignty and freedom.

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, in 1912, in the span of less than two weeks lost three of the most important people in her life.

Kind people, wanting to console, made the usual observation: “It is very hard to see how this can be for the best.”

“We are not asked to SEE,” said Amy. “Why need we when we KNOW.”

We know—not the answer to the inevitable Why, but the incontestable fact that it is for the best.…

Others, with a sigh and a shake of the head, observed that it is difficult for us human beings to escape bitterness, even dumb rage, when such things happen.

“It is indeed not only difficult, it is impossible,” Amy wrote.

“There is only one way of victory over the bitterness and rage that come naturally to us—To will what God wills brings peace.”

To will what God wills brings peace.

I think of Horatio Spafford, after loosing his daughters in a ship wreck, and receiving that telegram from his wife, “Saved alone” penned these words,

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say

“It is well, it is well with my soul”

Here are two people, Amy Carmichael and Horatio Spafford, who saw God as Job saw God in this passage.

“God I know you can do all things

and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

God you are sovereign and you are free, but you are also benevolent and very good and so I trust you.

“To will what God will brings peace.”

“Whatever my lot You have taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.”

God said to Job- “Everything under the whole heaven is mine.”

Job now replies, “no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Do you see God that way?

Do you trust Him, do you see Him as He has revealed Himself to be- sovereign and free / and at the same time good.

Do you trust Him?