Nothing happens outside. Of The decretive will of Almighty God. If you believe in that kind of sovereignty, Then sickness is a part of that plan and purpose. Christians get Cancer. Christians get dementia.
Christians lose limbs. God's people. The choicest of God's people. It can be difficult to remember God's sovereignty in times of trial. When tragedy comes into our lives, often we find ourselves asking the question, why?
Why is this happening to me? Why this? Why now? Hello and welcome to Renewing Your Mind. I'm glad you've joined us.
Even though we may find ourselves struggling with questions like these from time to time, thankfully, God has given us a template of how to respond to this question in Scripture. a template in the person of Job. Today we join Dr. Derek Thomas as we continue our study of the book of Job and the many trials that befell him. Stay tuned until the end of the episode to find out how you can receive a lifetime of digital access to this entire series.
So how should we respond when tragedy arrives on our doorstep? Here's Dr. Thomas.
Well, turn with me to Job chapter 2. and we'll read the opening verse together. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. to present himself before the Lord.
Now you'll remember back in chapter one Satan came into God's presence back there in chapter 1 and verse 6. There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, From where have you come? And at the end of the first chapter, Satan had been given a permission. to bring devastation into the life of Job into his Family.
The loss of his ten children and the loss of everything that Job had in terms of wealth and Job's wealth was in terms of camels and sheep and so on. He was a wealthy man. But now in chapter two, well a boundary had been set in chapter one. He may touch all that Job has, but he wasn't allowed to touch... Job.
himself Satan had made the accusation Verse 9 of chapter 1. Does Job fear God? for no reason. Does Job fear God? For no reason.
The only reason why Job fears God. It's because life is good. He has everything. Life is... It's easy for job.
He has a Good lifestyle. But take that away and he will curse God to his face.
Well, Job did not do that. And in chapter 1 and verse 21, he had responded, The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Now Satan is brought before God once again. God introduces him as a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him Without reason. First three. Without reason.
It's an interesting phrase, isn't it? It's the Hebrew word hinnom. It's as though God is saying to Satan, You incited me to do something to my servant Job. when there was no reason, when there was no cause. create in us a sense That life is unfair, that life is, well, random.
If God Himself does things when there's no reason for it. There's no cause for it. There's seemingly no justification for it.
Well, at least It looks like that. It looks like that to Satan. It sometimes looks like that to us. God does things. in his providence, in his decree.
It permits things to happen. And there seems to be no reason for it. There seems to be no cause for it. I was experiencing some difficulty some 20 years ago. and it was a personal family issue.
And I remember confiding in a dear friend of mine, I was an Old Testament professor. And only Old Testament professors would write notes like this. And he says, I have pretty much given up trying to read Providence. But I wonder if you're having one of those hinnom trials. I had to go and look up what the word hinnam meant.
I realized it was a Hebrew word and realized that he was quoting from chapter two of the book of Job. that God appears to us sometimes to do things without reason. Without costs. Without evident justification that that we can fathom. I think of Alfred Lloyd Tennyson's Charge of the light brigade.
This is an account, of course, of the Russians in the Crimean War in... The 1850s or so, ours not the reason why, ours but to do and die. Is that how we're supposed to approach life? And it's trials and difficulties. We don't ask for reasons.
We don't. Ask for justification. We just obey. We're just soldiers in the battle and we're not... Privy to the Okay.
Causation, the Factors that lie behind certain strategies and decisions. Ours is just to obey, just to do and die. Is that it?
Well, this is another day. Chapter 2 and verse 1. There was a day when the sons of God came. Another day. Again, there was a day.
The second day We're not told how Much time separated this one from the first one. And this time Satan answers the Lord verse 4 and says, skin for skin. All that a man has, he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand.
Only spare his life. Satan is given permission. Uh there's a boundary. You may not kill him. God sets a boundary.
He says, thus far and no further. But within this boundary within this sphere, this side of the boundary. You may do as you will. You may do as you wish. You may touch 'em.
But you may not kill him.
Well, this raises the majority of the major Lots of problems, lots of issues, lots of difficulties, raises Mm-hmm. issues about health. People say, don't they? If you have your health, you have everything. People say that.
It's not true, of course. It's nonsense. You can have everything and not have your health. What kind of philosophy is that to somebody who's ill, to somebody who's sick, somebody who's got cancer? Battling cancer.
Have they lost everything? Can they never be happy? Can they never find contentment? Can they never find a sense of purpose and meaning in life? Is it all gone because they're sick?
No, we don't believe that. Count it all joy when you fall into various kinds of trials. James says in chapter one and verse two. And he'll go on to talk about uh Job in chapter five of the book of Uh James. Job experiences a sickness.
It resembles What we have come to know of as AIDS, perhaps. Uh the body wasting away, sores developing on your skin and so on. Um Mm. The book will describe Some of the characteristics of his Sickness, his teeth seemed to fall out, his His breath seems to be putrid and so on. The expression skin and bones.
It comes from the book of Job. a wasting disease.
Some have Try to give it a label elephantiasis, perhaps. There's a vivid description in chapter 2 and verse 8. He took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes. You know, that's sore that that you just want to scratch. and you just can't stop s scratching.
I'll have you all scratching now in a second. But you understand, this is a disease, but it's more than that, it's a life-threatening disease. This disease is threatening to take his His life. Is sickness. part of God's will for us.
Is sickness part of God's plan? For us. And if we believe in the sovereignty of God. If you believe that nothing happens outside of God's decree, You know, everything happens because God decrees it to happen. Nothing happens outside.
Of The decretive will of Almighty God. If you believe in that kind of sovereignty, Then sickness is a part of that plan and purpose, nothing happens. Even even the sickness, even disease. There's part of God's Plan. But it raises issues, the the pro the problem of pain, the problem of suffering.
Either God lacks the power or He lacks the goodness. If God is sovereign, Then he must lack The good is not good, or either he's good, but he's not sovereign, that age-old dilemma. How can both be true and His own children be sick.
Well, you can deny his power. That would be one Philosophical, theological trajectory to go. You can deny God's power. Rabbi Kushner, for example, when bad things happen to good people. And bad things happen to Good people.
Oh, you may question the premise of the book that no one is good. We're all sinners. by nature fallen sons of Adam. But let's give Rabbi Kushnad a the the benefit of that one. When bad things happen to good people, let's change the title a little.
When bad things happen to the Lord's people. When bad things happen to Christians. Christians get Cancer. Christians get dementia. Christians lose limbs.
God's people. The choicest of God's people. I have some vivid memories of friends of mine. Who loved the Lord, who served the Lord. They were preachers.
They have vivid memories of a dear, dear, faithful preacher who who loved the truth, who loved the Bible. who love the doctrines of grace. I can still see him. with a Bible on his knees, but the Bible is upside down. And there are Foul words coming out of this mouth We have completely lost control of all reality.
It was He was so far gone. Couldn't even reach him anymore. And I remember sitting there, praying with him as he's cursing me. This was a Preacher of the Gospel. And Huh?
In my heart I'm saying, Lord. Why? Why this man? This good man, this godly man, this this man who spent his entire life proclaiming the doctrines of grace and preaching the gospel and you use so mightily. And now in this last season of his life, it's as though Satan has been given permission to do his worst.
Why? Maybe God isn't as powerful as you think he is.
So Rabbi Krishna says in. Mm-hmm. Bad things happen to good people. God isn't...
Well, God isn't in control. Satan is in control. We live in a dualistic universe.
Sometimes God is in control, and sometimes evil is in control. Satan is in control. It's like the toss of a coin. Depends on where you are, depends on which time frame you're in, depends on which zip code you live in. And you can.
Be in a zip code with a sovereignty of rules, and then you can drive up a highway and turn a corner, and then all of a sudden you're in a black hole, a pocket. You're in a wormhole as. A fold in space and evil is in charge. And evil is dominant. And that's the kind of universe that we live in.
Well, that's one solution. to the problem of pain. Another is to deny God's goodness. God is sovereign. But he's not necessarily good.
But he's not good in the way that you think he is good. Islam believes that. Islam believes in sovereignty, the will of Allah. Everything is the will of Allah, no matter what it is, it's the will of Allah. It was going to rape m women and children and and behead people for No apparent reason, and it's the will of Allah.
And God isn't good. Goodness is in some sub-category in the doctrine of God in Islam. Or you can deny pain itself. Pain isn't real. Pain is a figment of your imagination.
Mary Baker Eddy. Christian Science. I love this little limerick. And you should need to know the deal. is a is a place in in um Kent, uh near Ramsgate.
uh south east of England. And um A Christian scientist from Deal One said, Although it isn't real, When I sit on a pin and it pierces my skin, I dislike what I fancy. I feel. You've got to think about it. But it's a beautiful little limerick on the nonsensical nature of pretending that pain isn't real.
Because you certainly experience it, but you only fancy that you experience it when you sit on a pin.
Well, for most of us. That's just complete. Nonsense, of course. Pain is all too real. in our lives, in our families, in our homes, in our churches.
And the world around us. The world is full of. Hurt. And sickness. And sickness Well, it dominates some people's Life's a dominance Families.
and marriages. One thinks of a A little Child. Hold on. Suffering from Cancer. In a hospital.
Text. come as they did To me, last week. Mm. suggesting that perhaps this little child wouldn't live very much longer. And then in God's sovereign providence there so Uh a turning and uh Better news.
and an indication that perhaps through a fairly long and difficult trajectory, hope is emerging once again.
Some of you have been there.
Some of you know exactly what I mean. Is healing always God's will? Oh, clearly not. Paul, for example, talks to Timothy. Timothy has stomach problems, maybe an ulcer.
one of those grumbling ulcers. Maybe he has acid reflux. before days when over-the-counter medicines now and and good medicines and they work. And so on. And he says to Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach's sake, for medicinal.
reasons you understand. or Trophimus, he leaves behind in Ephesus a sick. This is the apostle. This is the apostle who has powers of miracles. performing miracles.
but he has to leave Trophimus behind.
So even the Apostle wasn't able to heal everybody. And then in 2 Corinthians 12, we read that he wasn't even able to heal himself. He has this thorn in the flesh, whatever that was. And it might have been something to do with his eyesight, because of something that he says in Galatians about see in what large letters I have written to you. And he prays three times for this to be removed and God doesn't remove it.
So healing isn't always part of God's will. intends for some of us to walk in the paths of Ill health. of the body, of Yeah. of the mind. Clearly, that's up.
part of God's will for some of his people. As it was for Job. A terrible, wasting disease that threatened to take away. His life. And we're introduced to Mrs.
Job. We haven't heard from her before. And uh we're introduced to Um Mrs. Job at the end of chapter two. We read of Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, and he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast? Your integrity. Curse God. And die. Curse.
God and die.
Well, Mrs. Job has not fared well. over the centuries by commentators on the book of Job. Augustine referred to her as Diabolia jutrex. You don't need to know any Latin to know that's not a compliment.
Yeah. She is the devil's advocate, Augustine said. Calvin. Mm. preached 150 nine sermons on the book of Job.
from 15 Fifty to 1555 over a period of about fourteen months. There weren't Sunday sermons, there were midweek sermons, lunchtime sermons, preached Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then occasionally on the following Wednesday and and that sort of rotation. But it took About fourteen months. in in the middle of the 16th century. And Calvin referred to Mrs.
Job as Organum Satani. And again, you don't need to know any. Um Latin, it's not a compliment. Um Aquinas Um Satan spared Job's wife for this very purpose. As his tool.
To imply.
Well, I've always felt that. as though the commentators were overly strident in their comments on on poor Mrs. Job. You know, she has lost ten children too. And perhaps Perhaps there's a milder interpretation here that she's saying to her husband, Having drawn the conclusion that the reason why this suffering has come is because God has cursed them.
And she doesn't want to see her husband suffering any more.
So curse God and and die and get it over with. Quickly.
Well, Job's response, of course, is He said to her, you speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Foolish in the biblical sense, yeah. The fool who says There is no God. In that sense. Shea A world view.
that is ungodly. She's speaking from almost like an atheistic worldview. She's speaking like somebody who's denying the existence of God. Shall we receive good from God? And shall we not receive Evil.
In all this Job did not sin with his lips. That's a staggering statement, isn't it, from Job. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive Evil. From God. Jobs commitment here to Well, a doctrine of sovereignty.
E even in his sickness. Not just good things. But evil things, too. No, he's not saying God is the author of evil. Westminster Confession, for example, the 1689 Baptist Confession.
of the seventeenth century. And they're only following medieval theology in this, saying that God is not the author of evil. Otherwise, that would make God himself a sinner. What is the connection between God and evil?
Well, he's in control. Nothing happens outside of his control. But things happen according to first causes and second causes. Things fall out by first and second causes. And again, this wasn't just a Reformation doctrine.
It wasn't just a Puritan doctrine of the 17th century. This was in fact the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas in the medieval era. Shall we accept good And shall we not accept Evil. What is Job saying to us?
Well, whatever the philosophical and theological answer to the question of the problem of pain may be. It is absolutely paramount. that we live our lives in the absolute Certainty. That nothing is outside of God's ultimate control. Good days and bad days.
Good things. and bad things. What does Paul say in Romans 8? Twenty-eight. All things And this is something that we know.
All things work. together. For good. That's where we want to rest. That's where we want to stay.
How wonderful our God is. Nothing is outside of his control, and he works all things together for our good. If you've found this study of the Book of Job helpful, we'd like to offer you a lifetime of digital access to Doctor Thomas's series, as well as the entire series on D V D and a digital study guide. simply call us with a donation at eight hundred four three five forty three forty three or give your gift online at Renewing Your Mind. org.
Your support helps ligand your ministries and Renewing Your Mind to reach more people with trusted teaching around the globe. Perhaps the greatest form of suffering for God's people is when trials befall us and God feels absent or far away.
Well, be sure to listen tomorrow as doctor Thomas continues our study of the Book of Job with a message titled the dark night of the soul. Here, on Renewing Your Mind.
