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Job The Righteous Sufferer Series
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 12, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: All of us will experience suffering, but few if any will have to go the route of Job. His severe experience can help all of us make our less severe journey smoother.
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One of the first impressions I gained at the Baptist General
Conference annual meeting in Green Bay was that Christians are
perpetually suffering. Every day we were reminded of leaders in our
conference who are fighting with cancer. Just in our small
denomination there are hundreds who have cancer, and hundreds
more who suffer from other diseases. On top of this,
accidents are taking life, or leaving people injured and maimed
everyday. If this be the case in just one arm of the body of Christ,
how great must be the suffering of the whole body?
It is no wonder that Paul prayed that Christians might be
strengthened in the inner man. Christians need internal shock
absorbers to keep on going in spite of the blows dealt by life. The best
shock absorbers are right thoughts about suffering. Wrong ideas and
theories to explain it only adds to the burden. Helmut Thielicke, the
great German preacher and scholar, who has traveled across America
many times was asked, "What is the greatest weakness of American
Christians?" He responded, "Their views of suffering." American
Christians suffer one by one and have not gone through the holocost of
war with its cities bombed and thousands dying all around them. The
result is, most of the deepest thinking on suffering comes from
Christians in England and Europe where they have been through it.
They will not be comforted when you squeeze rose-water on their
cancer. The facts of life have forced them to rethink the popular
simple views that Christians hold in sunny times. Fortunately for us
God has given us another way to think deeply about the mysteries of
suffering. We do not have to go through the fire to see the light. The
book of Job reveals the debate on suffering as no other piece of
literature on earth. Just as Jesus suffered for us that we need not
experience hell, so Job suffered that we need not go through hell on
earth to come to right ideas about suffering. Thank God we do not all
have to learn by experience. It is possible to learn much from the
experience of others. All of us will experience suffering, but few if any
will have to go the route of Job. His severe experience can help all of
us make our less severe journey smoother by giving to us the shock
absorbers of right ideas.
In the book of Job we learn from the mistakes of others. This is the
path of wisdom, for we cannot live long enough to make them all
ourselves. We can make plenty of them, however, and the fact is,
many go on making the same mistakes made by the friends of Job.
They were good and godly men, but are the great examples of how
wrong good and godly men can be when it comes to suffering. Their
mistake was the common mistake still being made by Christians.
They tried to impose their simple explanation on all of reality. They
followed the path of all who are dogmatic. In order to get all of the
evidence to support their theory, they just ignored the facts that didn't
fit. They hated complexity. They demanded that Job conform to their
nice neat simple formula for explaining his, and all suffering.
Their simple formula was that all suffering was a sign of divine
displeasure. When men are good and godly they do not suffer, for
God blesses them. When they do suffer they have ceased to be good
and godly. They have sinned, and all suffering is punishment for sin.
The beauty of this formula is that anyone can grasp it. It solves the
mystery of suffering and explains everything. If you suffer it is just a
reaping of what you have sown. There is really no mystery to solve. It
has only one major defect-it is not true. This is what Job keeps saying
over and over in his defense.
Many Christians, however never read the book of Job, or do not
understand it if they do. The result is that many Christians suffer
great mental agony because they try to explain everything by this
simple but false formula. They cry out in affliction saying, what have
I done to deserve this? This implies that all suffering is deserved and is
punishment for bad behavior. They may be conscious of some sin in
their life, but there is no way that their sin can be so great as to
deserve such severe punishment. So they get angry at God and accuse
Him of cruelty and injustice. They know people much worse than
themselves who do not suffer at all. Their faith is often damaged, and
they suffer mental and spiritual torment all because they start with
bad theology and a wrong view of suffering.