The Learning Curve of Life, Part 1

In verse 19 of chapter 33, Job is told that mankind is chastened. He's instructed with pain on his bed.

Have you ever been there? As a believer growing in Christ, undoubtedly you have. When physical affliction occurs and suffering and pain, those times cause you to reflect upon where you stand with God. Lord, what are you teaching me? Why do I have to be here in bed rather than at work or at school?

The only only direction you can look is up. It's true that during times of trial and affliction, our mind goes toward God, and that's a good thing. I'm sure that you've found that to be true. Haven't you experienced some sort of trial or problem and found yourself asking, Lord, what do you want to teach me?

I'm sure you have. Here on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen's been working through the life of Job. You've been hearing from both Job and his counselors. Today, you'll hear the voice of one last counselor who brings profound wisdom from God. Here's Stephen with a lesson called the learning curve of life. A common expression in our generation is the allusion to a learning curve.

You've probably used that phrase yourself. It's a reference to certain times in your life when life gets a little more difficult because there is a quick new thing thrust upon you. Maybe it's a new job with its learning curve.

You have an awful lot to learn in a short period of time until things eventually settle down. The concept of the learning curve was introduced in 1938 by an engineer who used it as a way to estimate the cost and efforts of airplane assembly. His theory of a learning curve was simply this. The more you repeat a series of operations, the less time an effort will be expended in order to achieve the result. Let me put that in language I understand. The first time you do something, it's harder than the fifth time you do it, right?

It's true. Do you remember the first time you swung a golf club? You wish that day had never happened, right?

You've been cursed ever since. I remember my roommate in college coming in. He'd gone to a driving range. He was talking about this sport and how tough it was to hit a golf ball. I said, nah, it can't be that hard. He said, it is.

I said, no, it isn't. He said, well, come with me. He took me out to the front lawn of the dormitory where we were living.

He stood me there on the front lawn with his driver. He said, okay, now here's how you hold the club. He had me twist my fingers all around this slender handle. He said, now here's how you stand.

I felt like I was playing Twister. He said, now. He put a ripe, big ripe orange on the ground. He said, now hit that orange. I said, just hit. You're going to ruin that orange.

You won't be able to eat it. He said, it'll be fine. Go ahead and hit it. I took a mighty swing. I swung again and again. He said, keep your head down.

Like, what good would that do? I kept my head down and swung again and again. And that orange began to mock me, make faces at me until finally I hit it.

Just, just creamed it only because I swung like this. That's how I come. You remember the learning curve of driving? Maybe your experience was like mine.

I don't know. I learned on a Volkswagen Bug, baby blue with four on the floor. It was a great vehicle.

My parents let me practice out in front of the house. I could go forward and I'd learn to go backward and you get that shift going and you got to put it in and give it a little gas and let the clutch off and a little more gas and then put it in the oven first. And then you put the clutch in again and let off the gas and on and on.

And on and on. And I, you know, nobody got hurt. Neighbors stayed indoors when they saw me go out there with a Volkswagen. But I remember showing up for driver's ed and I could not believe it. We could choose one of two cars, a little Buick or a Volkswagen.

I thought, man, is this good or what? I hopped in the front seat with a driving instructor and slammed the thing in the first gear. We took off without a hit, shifted it in the second gear and all of a sudden the car screeched to a halt.

My instructor had brakes on his side of the car and he looked over at me and he said, Son, we're not here to race. We're here to learn. To all the fun out of it. What about the learning curve of marriage? But you had premarital counseling, four sessions and a notebook, all the charts and everything, right?

What more is there to learn? The learning curve of marriage soon became apparent. In fact, after the wedding was over, one author said it this way. Marriage is like getting on a plane heading for the Bahamas. You've got all your shorts and Hawaiian shirts packed along with plenty of sunscreen and even a snorkel and fins. The plane lands and you discover you're at the North Pole. Instead of a breeze, it's a blizzard. You need a fur coat, not a swimsuit.

You need skis instead of fins and a snorkel. But it's too late. You've discovered you've packed all the wrong stuff. Maybe for you, you are buried in diapers.

There's a learning curve, nothing quite like it when you arrive home from the hospital with a newborn baby. It's a whirlwind of activity and the only thing missing in the whirlwind is sleep, right? Sleep has left you. But there's nothing quite like moments along that learning curve when you finally have the baby all bathed and lotioned up and they've had their bedtime bottle you've laced with NyQuil.

No, just kidding. But you've got that bottle in them and they're snuggled into their Winnie the Pooh pajamas with their little footies and they're clothed and for the moment and for the moment in their right mind, so it seems, and they eventually are asleep and nobody breathe. The baby is asleep and you pray, please God, let it be a deep, deep sleep like the sleep of hibernation. Let him sleep for three months. Maybe for you, the learning curve is a major move. Maybe it's forced retirement or maybe a new job. Maybe your freshman year. There is at least one learning curve that occurs to all of us.

Whether you're old or young, married or single, children or no children, employed or unemployed, rich or poor, you never know when you're going to be put on the steep curve that requires a tremendous amount of learning and you're never quite fully prepared and when you're in it, you've realized you've packed all the wrong stuff. David wrote, it was good that I was afflicted that I might learn of your statutes. Psalm 1, 1971. There's a sharp incline of alertness and even desperation to learn from God whenever you're in the classroom of affliction. The writer of Hebrews tells us that even Jesus Christ, though fully God, yet fully man and as man learned, he learned obedience through the things he what?

He suffered, Hebrews 5-8. If affliction introduces the believer to a learning curve, and it does, then Job has been writing one for several months, in fact, maybe as long as a year or two. By now, in our study, you are ready for the hush of heaven to be broken by the voice of God. You know it's coming. Maybe you've read the book of Job. You know it's coming.

Maybe you've read the book. It's just around the corner. Before God speaks and after Job has said his final words, appealing directly to heaven, there's a brand new voice heard out on the ash heap. Beginning with verse 1 of chapter 32, a young man by the name of Elihu steps forward to deliver a speech.

It's going to take the next six chapters of this book and we're going to race through them all. Elihu will actually introduce some brand new concepts that are closer to the truth than the counsel of Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar. Elihu will introduce the idea that God might have sent Job this suffering, not because he's sinned, but to keep him from sinning. Job, perhaps God is protecting you from greater sin by putting you on this learning curve called affliction and suffering. By the way, that is exactly the testimony of the Apostle Paul who wrote, because of the amazing greatness of the revelations given to me for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Why Paul? To keep me from exalting myself. 1 Corinthians 12 7 and 8. In other words, suffering kept Paul spiritually minded. Elihu suggests this possibility to Job, which would have been tremendously encouraging, fresh news, in fact closer to the truth. Elihu will also suggest another new concept and that is that suffering not only keeps a person from sin, it keeps them learning the ways of God.

There is this learning curve that affliction encourages and promotes. So he begins to speak and it's kind of long-winded. In fact, in chapter 32, all he does is tell Job for that whole chapter that he's going to speak.

He just introduces it. And he'll speak for six chapters. It reminds me of the story I read not too long ago when he was president. Ronald Reagan loved to tell the story of the young country boy who just finished his Bible education and he was going to go preach his first sermon. And when he arrived at the church to preach, he walked in and to his great disappointment, there was only one person in the little audience. It was one rancher present.

The church was empty except for that one man. The young preacher walked back there. He was sitting about halfway back, shook his hand and said, what do you think ought to do? The old rancher said, well, I don't rightly know, son. I'm just a cowpoke. But if I went out in my field and found only one steer, I'd feed it. That's all the young preacher needed.

He got up in the pulpit and delivered a sermon and went on and on and on and on and on and on. Well, over an hour later, he ended his marathon message, walked back to the rancher and said, well, what do you think? The old cow hand replied, well, I don't rightly know, son, but I'll tell you this. If I went out in my field and found only one steer, I wouldn't feed him the whole load. Well, I'm going to give you the whole load.

OK, so buckle up. Now, before we jump to Chapter 33, as Elihu finishes, you'll notice back in the first few verses of Chapter 32 that he does tell Job he's angry. He admits that he's angry.

And you think, oh, no, not another one of these guys. Job has had that. But if you look at verse two, you discover his anger burned against Job because he justified himself before God. Job was leaning toward self-righteousness, but he was also, verse three, angry with Job's friends. It says, and his anger burned against his three friends because they had found the answer, yet they had not found the answer or they had yet condemned Job without evidence is what he means. He's angry. He's watched. He's listened. And these men, without any objective evidence, have determined that Job's sufferings were the result of of great sin. Aristotle wrote that righteous anger, which Elihu demonstrates, I believe for the most part, is to be angry with the right person to the right extent at the right time with the right motive and for the right reason.

It's not easy to do and not everyone can do it. Now, in order for you, as we go through these chapters, to have some pegs of truth to hang your cowboy hats on, let me give you four major points of Elihu's counsel. Here's the first one. Even when life is confusing, God is still communicating. God is speaking, Job, not like you want, not through channels you might have expected, but he's speaking. He says here in verse 13 of chapter 33, Why do you complain against God that he does not give an account of all his doings? Indeed, God speaks once or twice.

No one notices it. And then he says the first way is in a dream, a vision of the night when sound sleep falls on men when they slumber in their beds. Then he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction. Now, in Job's era, before the Bible was completed or perhaps even begun, if Job's book is indeed, as I believe, the first book ever compiled and edited by Moses, as many Bible scholars believe, God spoke through dreams. I fear that today our evangelical world is so uninterested with the word of God they're now attempting to organize and and sell ways for you to interpret your dreams and visions and all sorts of confusion and chaos is the result.

You can go to the Christian bookstore even today and buy a manual on how to interpret your dreams. Listen, finding some hidden spiritual truth in a dream opens the door to subjective departure from the truth of God's word. And so when you read a text like this, remember Job lived at the outset of the revelation of God and God would speak to him in this way. That's why even the prophet Isaiah challenged his people to stick with the law and the testimony. To the law, he said, to the testimony, what God has written through his servants, if men speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8 verse 20. If they distract us from the truth of God's revealed word they are to be discarded.

I caution you to to try to find some kind of deep meaning or truth. Go to the word of God. In fact, if a dream merely reinforces what God's word has already said, you're not following the dream.

You're following God's word, right? I remember in my own life being troubled about the rapture. I was worried, filled with fear. I was 17 years old and going to hell and I knew it. But I was in church every Sunday.

My parents are missionaries, but I was a hypocrite. There was no evidence of God's work in my heart. There was no hunger for the word of God, no desire to live for God. And though I kept any outward expression of rebellion close to my vest, my heart was far from God and I was frankly terrified of going to hell. And I can remember having a dream that I was in hell. Obviously, the work of my own mind troubled me even in my dreams, but I can remember it was vivid and it was real. And I awoke that night covered with sweat, laying there in my bed, knowing that I needed to give my life to Christ.

And I slipped out of my bed and onto my knees and surrendered my life, everything I was and would be to Christ. Now, my dream didn't add anything to the word of God. It didn't contradict what God's word had already said.

It didn't take anything away. It reinforced the truth that was rolling around in my mind. The troubling thing to me, and that's why I wanted to spend a few moments on this, is that people are going outside the word of God. They're delving into their dreams to find answers, direction, decision for their lives, and they're getting involved in all sorts of strange diversions from the truth. We have been told that the content of the word of God is sufficient to equip us for every aspect of life. 2 Timothy 3 16 and 17.

Every good work. But for Job in this era, God could and evidently was revealing himself through dreams, and he and others were ignoring them. Secondly, Elihu reminded Job that God was speaking through suffering. In verse 19 of chapter 33, Job is told that mankind is chastened, he's disciplined, he's instructed with pain on his bed. Have you ever been there as a believer growing in Christ?

Undoubtedly you have. When physical affliction occurs and suffering and pain, those times cause you to reflect upon where you stand with God. Lord, what are you teaching me? Lord, what are you teaching me? Why do I have to be here in bed rather than at work or at school?

The only direction you can look is up. C.S. Lewis wrote, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our consciences, but he shouts to us in our pain. Pain, Lewis wrote, is his megaphone rouse, a deaf world. God has been speaking to Job through dreams and pain. Finally, he speaks through others. Verse 32, through an angel.

You could broadly translate that word messenger, which I believe he refers to here. He says in verse 23 to remind a man what is right for him, and he assumes that everybody has the opportunity, which would lead me to then believe that he's speaking to messengers of truth. Job, even when your life has been most confusing, God has indeed been communicating. You aren't listening.

Secondly, even when life seems unfair, God is never unjust. Go to chapter 34 and he quotes Job back to himself. You ever had somebody challenge you and they quote you with your own words? It's irritating, isn't it?

But effective. So he does the same thing here. He said, Job, you said it profits me nothing when a person is pleased with God. In other words, life is unfair. God is rewarding the wrong man. I have been walking with God and God is evidently unjust. Elihu will simply repeat the truth that God always does what is right, even when we don't see it. Look at verse 10 of chapter 34.

Therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do wickedness and from the Almighty to do wrong. For he pays a man according to his work and makes him find it according to his way. Surely God will not act wickedly and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Throughout this chapter, ladies and gentlemen, Elihu will defend the character and nature of God.

When you're discouraged and life seems unfair, the best thing a counselor can do is what Elihu did, defend the character of God and remind you that God is always right, even when he chooses not to explain his ways. Elihu describes the facts about God. In verse 11, he is a just rewarder. Verse 13, he is a sovereign authority. Verse 14 to 15, he is a sustainer, independent sustainer of life. Verses 16 to 20, he is the impartial ruler. He just goes down the list rehearsing the great attributes of God. And I don't know about you, but I have found in times of suffering, the greatest thing to have rehearsed to me is the attributes of God.

So that God becomes great and I become small. Notice verse 19 of chapter 34. Who? That is God. He shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of his hands. In other words, we play favorites, God doesn't. We show partiality, God never has. We skewer the scales of justice with high paid lawyers. God judges one and all with the same scales of perfect justice and perfect holiness and perfect judgment. He just hasn't unrolled those scales now like he will when the books will be open and all the world will stand before him. Job, even if life seems unfair, God is never unjust. Oh yeah?

Well, it's possible for somebody to be just and unkind. It's as if Elihu anticipated that kind of response from Job's heart. And so he moves to his third major point.

Here it is. Even when life seems hard, God is not heartless. God is not distant when we suffer. In fact, one of those precious texts that you've probably heard before arises from the ash heap of Job's suffering here. This time, not from Job's lips, but from the lips of Elihu as he describes God as the one in verse 10 of chapter 35, who gives us songs in the night.

You ought to underline that and circle it and put a star by it. Elihu says further in verse 11, God makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens. He teaches us more than he ever teaches an animal in the field. Above all, Job, don't forget, God gives songs in the night. Listen, there's quite a difference between whistling in the dark and singing in the dark, isn't there? You know, I come over here sometimes late at night to get a book, pick up something. The place is dark. This place is big. This place is spooky. When you're not here, it's spooky.

And I'll whistle all the way up through the elevator. And it's not courage. It's not bravery.

It's not trust in the sovereignty of God, I am afraid. But to be in a dark place and all alone, suffering whatever suffering brings, and begin to sing, praise to God, that is the courage of faith. That's Paul and Silas singing and acting singing in Acts 16 in the jail cell.

That's Jesus Christ in the upper room, moments away from Gethsemane. The text says, and after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. How do you sing before Gethsemane and the cross? It's one thing to sing in the sunshine. It's another thing to sing in the nighttime, perhaps for you today. One of the wonderful reasons and motives behind the gathering of the assembly to sing is that we declare our faith and maybe for you to sing those lyrics, to recommit your trust in the shepherd as demonstration of courageous faith.

You are singing songs in the night. Stephen's been teaching you about the kind of comfort God wants to bring you. I hope that if you're in need of comfort today, God will use this message to encourage you. In the meantime, if you're new to Wisdom for the Heart, welcome.

I'm glad you found us. We have a resource that we want to send you today. If you call and take the time to introduce yourself, we'll thank you by sending you a copy of one of Stephen's booklets from Job. Job's faith was firmly rooted in God. It's the same kind of faith you need today. Stephen has a booklet called The Gospel According to Job. If you're new to our ministry and you've never contacted us before, we're going to send you a free copy and all you need to do is call us at 866-48-Bible. That's 866-482-4253. We're looking forward to meeting you today. Please be sure and come back at this same time tomorrow as we bring you more Wisdom for the Heart.