Jobs Unparalleled Distress, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Almost all of us in our years of growing up have had the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it. When we do wrong, we get punished. But one of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there's no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain that we experience. An even larger surprise is that very often there is something quite the opposite. We do right and then we get knocked down.

We do the best we're capable of doing. And just as we are reaching out to receive our reward, we're hit from the blind side and sent reeling. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Life is amazingly redundant. Solomon said all those years ago, there's nothing new under the sun. This past week, I found an article written by Ray Stedman, the late Ray Stedman, the pastor of Peninsula Bible Church in California that occurred 73 years ago. And he he writes about a young man named Johnny Gunther. He said Johnny Gunther was an active, fun loving straight A student from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.

He excelled in math and science and chess. Early in 1946, his life was overshadowed by the discovery of a large malignant tumor in his brain. Over the next 14 months, Johnny endured two operations, painful spinal taps, daily X-ray treatments, experimental injections of mustard gas and a severe dietary regimen. Many of the treatments Johnny was subjected to in the 1940s are now known to have no therapeutic value. And during his treatments, Johnny amazed his doctors with his courage and his optimism and ability to survive a particularly aggressive tumor.

For a while, early in February of 1947, he grew stronger as the tumor appeared to shrink. But in April, as Johnny was taking his college board exams, he suffered short bouts of amnesia. Though Johnny's illness had hurt his attendance at school, he had built up so much extra credit that he was able to graduate with his class on June the fourth. And when Johnny returned to Deerfield Academy for his final weeks of school, his classmates couldn't hide their shock of his thin, wasted appearance. He wore a turban to cover his bald, surgery scarred head. And though his life was ebbing, he faced his final exam in chemistry and received an A.

On June the fourth, he received a standing ovation as he walked across the platform to receive his diploma. On June the 12th, Johnny was admitted into the local hospital, where he experienced worsening bouts of amnesia and headaches and vomiting and tremors. The doctors told his parents that he was dying of a cerebral hemorrhage. Just a few days after entering the hospital, Johnny received the news that his application to Columbia University had been accepted. Early on June the 30th, 1947, Johnny went into a coma from which he never woke up.

He was pronounced dead that night at 1102. Johnny's father, journalist John Gunther, recounted his story in a book that became a modern classic, Death Be Not Proud. One of the most poignant ironies of Johnny Gunther's story is the fact that his cancer attacked him at the very sight of his personality, his intellect and his human potential.

Stedman then writes this. He said, We hear a tragic story like Johnny Gunther's and we have to wonder why. Why was life taken from such a promising young man? Why was his life cut short? Why did he have to endure so much suffering? Why is life so unfair?

One of the most profound observations of all these years of ministry is that one. Why is life so unfair? It bothers me and I know it bothers you. And yet the unfairness of life touches all of us. I would say it this way. Welcome to Job's world. It's an amazing thing. An entire book of the Bible dedicated to this very question.

Why is it so unfair? Would you open your Bibles to Job chapter one? Job chapter one.

We're going to begin a study in the book of Job I call pondering Job. You know a little bit about the story. You know something about the front of the book and the back of the book. But I'm pretty sure you don't know the book. You get kind of lost in the middle. It's an amazing book.

I don't know if you're aware of this. It's by a mile the oldest book in the Bible. Nothing's even close. Genesis is even close to Job. Job is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Genesis. It's the first book ever written in the word of God. And I believe personally that the reason it's written is because God understands what it means to be a human being on a cursed and fallen planet among sinful people. In other words, we will suffer. And God wanted humanity in the very first book to understand what about suffering? Is life fair?

How does this work? And all those kind of questions. Job is a unique book. The beginning of the book is written in prose, just like a story.

And the end is written in prose, but the middle is written in poetry. It's the first of the five wisdom books of the Old Testament. When you really study it, you come away in awe of the whole book. Martin Luther called the book magnificent.

Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish essayist, said, there is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it of equal literary merit. Victor Hugo, the French poet and author, said this. He said Job was perhaps the greatest masterpiece of the human mind. Eugene Peterson, a contemporary writer, in his introduction to the book of Job, he said this. It is not only because Job suffered that he is important to us. It's because he suffered in the same ways that we suffer in the vital areas of family, personal health and material things. Job is also important to us because he searchingly questions and boldly protested his sufferings.

Indeed, he went to the top with his questions. It's not the suffering that troubles us. It's undeserved suffering. Almost all of us in our years of growing up had the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it. When we do wrong, we get punished. But one of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there's no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain that we experience. An even larger surprise is that very often there is something quite the opposite. We do right and then we get knocked down.

We do the best we're capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward, we're hit from the blind side and sent reeling. That's what I want to start looking at today, the book of Job, and continue in the weeks ahead. Job is a real man. Ezekiel 14, 14 mentions Job, and in the New Testament, James, the Lord's brother, in James 5 mentions Job. So he's not some story made up.

This is a real man. And he experiences unparalleled distress. So in these first five verses, I want you to see something.

I want you to see his prosperity. The book starts great. It just sounds like one of these happy books for five verses. It says there was a man in the land of Uz, and his name was Job. No one's really sure why they call him Job. They're not sure about the name.

It's a very old, old name. But he's from the land of Uz. He's southeast of the Dead Sea.

That's where he's at. And they find him there, and it says, And that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. So immediately, the first thing that you see about Job is his character. Now, when he says he's blameless and upright doesn't mean he's sinless. It means he has great integrity before God. And we'll see this as it plays out in these first two chapters.

He says not only does he fear and respect God, but he turns away from evil. He has seven sons and three daughters. So he has a big family.

You'll see these are all adult children in just a moment. But he has seven sons and three daughters. So he has a large family.

And then it says this. His possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and many servants. And the man was the greatest of all the men of the east. Now, we read that and say, oh, he had some animals.

Please understand something. I'm one of them, but a lot of the commentators say Job was probably the richest man on earth at that time. You measured your value by the animals that you owned. And notice what he starts out with. He has 7,000 sheep. Now, the average shepherd at that time had maybe 50 to 100. He had 7,000 sheep, just the amount of wool that he could produce and sell.

And then it says something a little bit odd to us. He had 3,000 camels. He had a trucking business.

That's what he had. That's why you have 3,000 camels. You see, he would loan out his camels for moving goods all over the Near East. He had thousands of them, 3,000 camel. And then it tells us that he also had 500 yoke of oxen, which means he had 1,000 oxen.

A yoke means two. You put two in whenever they plow. Now, you don't have 1,000 oxen just to work your own field. I mean, he had enormous fields, I'm sure, but he loaned them out. He sold those out to others so they could plow their fields. He had 500 yoke of oxen. And then for many of us, it seems so strange, 500 female donkeys.

Now, why? What's the point of female donkeys? Well, when you read about it and find it out that the delicacy of Job's day is female donkey milk.

If you were lucky enough to get donkey milk, that was really special. He had 500 female donkeys. So he not only had enough for his whole family and his servants, but I'm sure he sold it as well. So he has this tremendous amount of prosperity that's happening to him.

Notice the summary of the writer that he was the greatest man in the East. His sons used to go to a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. His day means his birthday.

They'd have a party at the son's birthday, bride all the other brothers and sisters in for the party. Now, this will tell you something about Job. Notice that it says in verse five, it says, And it came about when the days of feasting had completed their cycle, that Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.

He did this continually. He's the priest of his family. And he's offering a burnt offering. He doesn't even know if they did anything. But he said if they did do anything, I want that covered by an offering before God. This is an amazing, conscientious and righteous man, just looking out even for his own family. And so the whole thing starts out, there was a man.

And he was extremely prosperous. Now, verse six. Now, there was a day.

This is really where the thing changes, scene changes, curtain goes on, set changes. And now you move from earth to heaven. And there was a day. For almost all of us, there's going to be that day. And there was a day. Some of you have already had a day like that. There was a day you'll never forget. There was a day when you heard the diagnosis and prognosis. There was a day when you heard of someone you love die. There was a day. You see, there was a day.

And that's the way the writer handles it. He said there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. The sons of God here are the angelic beings, the spiritual beings. This might shock you, but it shouldn't if you read the word of God. It says, and Satan was among them.

He's had no problem with this. And it's not really Satan. In English, it says that. But in Hebrew, it doesn't say exactly that. In Hebrew, you have ha satan.

Ha is an article. It was the satan. The satan is the adversary. We think it's his name. It's not his name.

It's what he is. He's the adversary. He's called all the way to the first few chapters here, the satan. Every time it has the article, he is the adversary of God. And he presents himself to God.

And you might think, whoa, I'm glad that's over with because that's way back then. Not true. When we read the book of Revelation, we see that satan still has open access to God. And he still accuses us day and night before God.

So nothing has really changed. He has that access. Now, what's interesting is the next phrase, and the Lord said to satan, so who brought this up? Does satan bring it up?

No. The Lord brought it up. He's got something in mind here. The Lord brought it up, and he said, first of all, where do you come from? And satan answered the Lord and said, from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.

That sounds like a teenager, doesn't it? Hey, where were you at? Oh, we're just out messing around, moving around. Moving around.

But that's not really true there. That word roaming is the Hebrew word soot. And it means that he was going around with a specific agenda and goal in mind. You have a particular purpose. He's always had that agenda. He has always had the agenda to destroy man and his testimony for God, if he can. He said that's what he was doing. Now, remember, does God know he's doing that? So why did he ask him the question?

You see, because he wants the conversation. So then he says to satan, have you considered my servant Job? Notice he calls him my servant. Have you considered my servant Job?

Have I? If you went to a demon post office on the most wanted board, he's the guy, the most wanted guy, the guy we want to get. He's the bull's eye to us. I consider him every moment of every day. And God says, well, have you ever considered my servant Job? He said, for there's no one like him on Earth.

Blameless and upright man, fearing God, and he turns away from you, from evil. God just said he's the most righteous man on Earth. He's the only person, other than Jesus Christ, you can be sure, was the most righteous man on Earth. Because man didn't say that. God said it. He said, there's no one like Job. He's that righteous. What's the disrespect in the next verse? Then satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for nothing? Whoa.

Isn't that interesting? Remember satan's discussion in Garden of Eden? What's the first thing he does with Eve?

He asks her a question. You see, he says, wait a minute. Does Job really spread you for nothing? Now, God has said Job is blameless. Satan is implying Job is not.

Job is selfish. He's self-absorbed. Watch what he says. He said, have you not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has on every side?

You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. You know why Job loves you? You pay him to.

That's what you do. You pay him. That's why he says he loves you.

That's why he's faithful. Look what you've given him. You put a hedge about him.

I've loved to get my hands on him, but you won't let me. By the way, a quick point of application, he's put a hedge around you and me as well. I know he's put it around you because you're here. Because if he didn't have a hedge around you, you wouldn't be.

You see, that's the whole point. He said, I can't get to him. You paid him. He's self-absorbed. That's what's really going on here. That's the way it works.

It's a really interesting thing. He's very clever in what he ends up saying here. So notice, he goes on with it and he says this. He said, but put forth your hand. He said, put forth your hand now and touch all that he has. He'll curse you to your face.

He said, you just go after it, what he has. He'll curse you to his face. Now understand this, Job doesn't know anything about this. Job doesn't know this is going on. He has no idea there's a discussion going on.

And they're having this discussion. He said, he'll curse you right to your face. You take what he has away from him, that's what he'll do. And then surprisingly, then the Lord said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power. All that he has is in your power now. Boy, that's a lot of stuff.

Big family, lots of servants, all those possessions, it's all in your power now. Only do not put your hand on him. He cannot harm him. So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord. There's some principles here for us in these first verses, these first 12.

One is this. You and I have an enemy who's real, and he'll try to ruin your life and your testimony if he can. We have a real enemy.

And so often when you're going through real troubles in your life, you have to think this way. Is Satan behind this? Is this somehow going to discredit the testimony of the Lord? You see, is this going to bring about sin in somebody's life? Secondly, there are trials that come into our lives that are not deserved, but they are permitted.

They're not deserved, but they are permitted, trials in our own life. Thirdly, and this will evolve as we go through the book, God has a plan for us that we may never understand. You can go all the way through this whole book. God has a plan for us that you and I may never understand short of heaven. Then we'll know as we're known.

But until then, we may never understand it. And lastly, the silence of God will make you wonder if he's there or he cares. And the book of Job will make it clear to us.

He is there, and he does care. So Satan touches almost all that Job has, starting in verse 13. He says, now it happened on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, that a messenger came to Job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside him. And the Sabians attacked and took them. And they slew the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was speaking another, he also came and said the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them. And I alone have escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking to another, he also came and said the Chaldeans formed three bands. And they made a raid on the camels. And they took them and they slew the servants with the edge of the sword.

And I alone, he said, have escaped to tell you. That's a bad day. He lost every time a stock market crash. He lost everything and all the servants.

In one day, three messengers running in panting. Everything you own is gone. If you were Job, what would you be thinking right then? Beside how feeling sorry for yourself, you might be thinking, at least my kids are alive.

I still have my children. And then right after that, this man runs in. And it says in verse 18, while he was still speaking, another also came and said, your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine with their oldest brother's house. And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness, struck the four corners of the house. It fell on the young people and they died.

I alone have escaped to tell you. Wow. How would that make you feel? This isn't one day. This isn't something building up. This isn't something, this is instantaneous.

There's no expectation any of this is ever going to happen. And all of a sudden, all of this happens in one day. Verse 13 made it so clear, now it happened.

Sometimes the worst things we go through are instantaneous. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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