Eusebeia Bible Church - Pastor Ed Collins
The Doctrine of Suffering - Job – Part 57: The Central Theme In the Bible Reveals Itself
June 23, 2010
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“fearing God”
Means respecting His authority and His sovereign will to do what is perfectly right and just - always!
Grace In Action
Divine discipline is grace! God, by means of grace, motivated in love, approaches Job.
Grace
The Book of Job not only shows how far a person can fall, but more importantly, how far God is willing to pick us back up!
Matthew Henry
Our quarrels with God always begin on our part, but the making peace begins on his.
Why the Distinction?
God makes a distinction between Job’s friends and Job - but the big question is why?
Job’s Friends’ Error
Job’s friends misrepresented God by supposing limited theology. Their theology misrepresented God’s ability to deliver the suffering righteous in His timing and to punish the prospering wicked in His timing.
Job’s Goodness
Job has accepted that there are times when God’s divine providence will withhold deliverance for some time - possibly even beyond physical death.
Point 50
The boundaries of God’s divine providence are not set by time, but rather God’s purposes. His deliverance is loosed from the envelope of temporal conditions, yet guarantees eternal value.
Job’s Goodness
Job’s acceptance of things eternal as a primitive variable in reconciling his temporal suffering reveals true understanding of divine proceedings.
The Key To Success
Job never stopped seeking God for answers, which finds favor with God. His friends, however, were satisfied with their own subjectively bounded pseudo-wisdom.
Job 6:21
[Job to friends] “Indeed, you have now become such,
You see a terror and are afraid.”
Faith Provides Sight
Being so-called “in the dark” is not the same for everyone. Those with faith see by means of the Light, by means of BD, which overcomes any fear of the dark.
Job 13:9-10
[Job] “Will it be well when He examines you?
Or will you deceive Him as one deceives a man?
“He will surely reprove you
If you secretly show partiality.”
Job’s Priestly Function
Job becomes a priest on behalf of his friends, not only pointing to God’s approval of him as a man of integrity, but also pointing to God’s disapproval of his friends devices.
When God Speaks
No more speculation…no more contemplation…no more accusations - just God!
God’s Grace
Does God only provide for Job?
NO!!!
God’s Grace
God’s perfect plan includes deliverance for even the most misguided, arrogant, puffed up individuals. But there are conditions! Job’s friends must, through humility, present the sacrifices to Job.
Testing Faith
A person must BELIEVE that God will deliver on His promises.
Faith Testing
God knows the heart of man and his motivation to lean on His promises. However, He mandates faith as a prerequisite to spending BD on life, which includes no doubting.
Faith Testing
The double-minded don’t really have faith in God’s promises and so they don’t receive the deliverance from God.
God’s Grace Plan
God has offered them the path back to fellowship with Him, but they must ACCEPT it as Truth, passing first through a state of humility, and then on to repentance.
The Central Theme
Salvation and deliverance, whether OT or NT, has always been the same. It begins with faith alone in Christ alone and continues on the basis of that Truth.
Hab 2:4
“Behold, as for the proud one,
His soul is not right within him;
But the righteous will live by his faith.
Immutability
Does refusing to abide by a principle of Truth ever change the principle?
Joh 1:29
The next day he *saw Jesus coming to him and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
tetelestai
“it is finished” (John 19:30)
Faith
Faith is not a mechanical thing. Faith may be expressed by word or deed, but God examines the heart.
The Basis of His Promises
When we rebound (1Jo 1:9), we are claiming the promises of God for restoration based on the integrity of God towards the finished work of the Cross.
Job 42:8 [NLT]
So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has."
God’s Grace
When God was angry with Job's friends, he put them in a way to make peace with Him. He showed them the path to recovery. Now it was up to their volition to accept the offer.
