The Gospel According to Job

What Job recognized in his own pain will be the picture of all of humanity, of all time who are about to be condemned and they will stand before God, not with all of their mouths moving, not presenting their defenses.

The scriptures tell us prophetically, this is what it will look like. God will deliver the verdict and humanity will be silent. You don't sue God. You settle with God.

And may I suggest that you settle out of court. The Old Testament prophet, Job, knew that if he was going to find deliverance, it would not come from within himself. It would come from God. Job understood the critical principles of the gospel, the good news of how mankind can be made right with God. In this lesson, Stephen Davey takes us to the book of Job and points out five principles of gospel truth. Job is probably not the first book to come to your mind when you think about the gospel. So stay with us to learn more about this. The lesson you're going to hear is called The Gospel According to Job.

Here's Stephen now. A news article posted from Athens, Greece told the story of a Romanian prisoner who is currently serving time in jail, but he is suing God. The Greek state television picked up the story of this inmate named Pavel Im.

He's serving 20 years in the West Romanian city of Timiosura. He apparently is blaming God for the troubles in his life and wants God brought to account for failing to fulfill his end of the bargain. He's claiming that when he was baptized as a child, that concluded effectively a contract with God that had legal effects and God was obligated to protect him from the devil and from sin and God didn't follow through and now it's God's fault and so he's suing God. He has actually submitted the lawsuit to court. The civil court said, however, in the Greek news releases that it's unlikely the case will ever be heard in court since it's rather difficult to subpoena God. I came across a Canadian organization that defends the rights of people against discrimination and related to sicknesses and this particular mission statement, they talk about how they are wanting to provide legal protection for children and adults, especially those who are facing discrimination because they are overweight, which is well and good. However, I read there on the home page they made this claim against God and I quote, the largest offender is God. He gives people heart disease and high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, breathing problems and gout. We are therefore suing God because God discriminates. Then there's a place to sign up, quote, join us in our class action suit against God for the burden he is placing on the health care system. You think, well, okay, that's Romania and that's Canada. Well, here's a woman in Oakland, California.

You're probably thinking, well, that's still a foreign state, but at least it's the United States. Recently took God to court. A lightning bolt struck near her home, creating a fire, destroying the four homes she owned in that neighborhood. The six-figure damage suit charges God with careless and negligent operation of the universe. Her indictment included mismanagement of the weather. Her attorney said he would try to collect the money.

Now, this is where it gets scary because they're actually serious. He would try to collect the money by attaching a claim to some property that had been deeded to a nearby church. She claimed that the money really should come to her if God failed to show up in court.

Fortunately for her, God probably won't show up. Can you imagine suing God? Even coming up with the idea of taking God to court.

Well, frankly, if you want to know how Job is feeling by the time you arrive at Chapter 9, would you believe it? But he wants to take God to court. He believes that God is unjust and now legal jargon begins to appear in this book. In Chapter 9, verse 3, the word for contend means literally to enter into litigation. The word for answer in verse 15 is an actual reference to giving testimony in court. The word for judge in verse 15 also is legal jargon. It refers to your opponent at law. He says in verse 19, he speaks of setting a time.

This is literally referring to a subpoena to appear in court at a particular time. In verse 33, the umpire or daysman Job refers to is a reference to a mediator or a judicial arbiter in court. Later, a couple of times more legal jargon will appear in Chapter 13, verse 3, Job refers to reason, which actually defines the argument of a case in court. In verse 18 of Chapter 13, Job refers to preparing his legal brief, his legal case, and his pleading in verse 19 is a reference to disputation in court. Job wants to take God into court. But still, Job will amend, go back to Chapter 9, verses 14 to 16, let me summarize, he'll still lament the fact that if I could get God to court, if I could somehow pull him in, I wouldn't win.

What could I say that would make him listen? And Job reminds his false and uncaring counsel or Bildad that man is no match for God. Even when you think you're right, God does whatever he pleases, either punishing you or pampering you, and it doesn't seem to matter if you're right or wrong. See, he's frustrated with the fact that God doesn't seem to be pulling his end of the bargain. He would like to sue God if he could.

But then he's frustrated with that thought because he knows there's no way he could win. He says to Bildad in verse 10 of Chapter 9, effectively that God is invincible. I mean, God does wondrous things.

Who can do anything to the one who created the Big Dipper and the constellation of Pleiades? Who could stand against the Creator God? He's not only invincible, verse 11 says he's invisible. He says, even if God were to show up and pass by me, I would not see him. Were he to move past me, I would not perceive him.

How do you make a case in court with somebody you can't see? God is further unaccountable. He says in verses 12 and 13, were he to snatch away, who could restrain him? Who can say to God, what do you think you're doing? God is unanswerable. Verse 15, for though I were right, I could not answer.

That is, I would not be able to state my case in court before this invincible, invisible, unaccountable, unanswerable God. And now in his frustration, he delivers the thought and the perspective of God that he is unmerciful. Verse 22, Job says effectively, therefore I say, he destroys the guiltless and the wicked. If the scourge kills suddenly, he mocks the despair of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of the judges. Even in court, the judge would probably be blinded by the power of God.

So what good does this do? Job's pain is being replaced with anger. Satan has not succeeded in getting Job to blaspheme God, but he has succeeded in distorting Job's perception of God. He has succeeded, ladies and gentlemen, in making God the enemy of Job in Job's mind.

People in deep pain often arrive at the same conclusion. God doesn't care about me. God must not love me.

God must be against me. And that's the progression at work in his life. He's become convinced of several things. Chapter 10, if I could summarize, he's convinced that God is all knowing but refuses to shed any of his insight on Job's heart. Verses 1 to 7. God created Job but no longer cares about him.

Look at verse 8 of chapter 10. He says, your hands fashioned and made me all together and now you destroy me? Remember, I'm made of clay. Would you turn me to dust? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese and clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You've granted me life and loving kindness and your cares preserved my spirit up until this point.

But look at verse 16. Now my head's lifted up so that you can hunt me like a lion. You would show your power against me. You renew your witnesses against me. I can take you to court.

I want to because I think you're unjust but you're going to line up the witnesses and they're all going to be stacked against me. In spite of Job's despair and his anger, his words are filled with almost prophetic longing, truths, rich truths, salient points of the Gospel without realizing it. For those of us who live today with completed revelation, we can look at the anguish of Job and hear his demands for justice and read in his complaint the future coming of the one who would state both the justice of God and be the justifier of mankind. When Jesus Christ walked on the road to Emmaus, you remember heading back to the village were two disillusioned disciples and we're told that the Lord began with Moses and the prophets to deliver to them the Gospel regarding himself. I think after reading again and again chapters 9 and 10 these would have made some great texts for our Lord to deliver the Gospel to these disciples.

So what I want to do today is something a little different. I just want to take a few of these texts and deliver to you the Gospel according to Job. Go back to chapter 9. It's easy enough to hear the beginning need of the Gospel, this lamenting cry of not only Job but the entire human race. Verse 2, Job's opening response to Bildad is how can a man be right before God? This is the question of all of human history. This is the question that haunts every human heart.

I know there's somebody something out there whatever you want to call them. How do you stand before them? How can you be right with God? That is the beginning of the Gospel. The question in the heart of the one is being drawn to the Father who says with pathos, with longing, with agony, I am not right with God.

How can I become right with him? Some would say that Job is not referring to salvation but vindication. It doesn't matter to me for in either case the question remains what would ever give a human being the right to be accepted by a holy blameless God? How could we ever dare say that we will one day stand before God? Who do we think we are? This is the question of the human heart.

And ladies and gentlemen this is the most important question you will ever ever answer in your life. How can I be right with God? The world will be telling you that there's just about anything or any place or any way or any path you can get to be right with God.

You just you know be as sincere as you can. That would be like me going to Raleigh-Durham International Airport to get a plane ticket because I want to visit some family in Georgia. And I tell the ticket agent you know any plane will do. Any gate will do as long as the pilot is sincere. As long as I get a feeling that once I sit in the seat this seat is for me.

I just get the feeling that this is right for me. I want to know the exact flight number. I want to know the exact gate where I'm going to walk.

I want the time of departure and I want the time of arrival. I don't even need to meet the pilot. I want the right plane. Why is it that when it comes to traveling from Earth to eternity any plane will do? Any path will do? Any God will do? Any pilot will do?

Just be sincere and feel like that seat is good for you. The Gospel informs us that we all in fact the human heart wants to know how to be right with God and it is a question that is answered in the God-man. This one who does not resist or hold back from from being rather dogmatic in his statement that on the plane there's no other way there's no other path there's no way to the Father but through me. We believe that that's why we're passionate about praying and giving and sending people around the world to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ because every plane doesn't go to God.

Every path doesn't lead there. We know the Gospel of Romans 8 one tells us there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in whom? Christ Jesus. Peter preached there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved and he preached that message to a people who had as many gods and goddesses as human beings. Paul wrote to the Galatian church grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us.

Jude put an exclamation point on his answer to Job's lamenting question that haunts the heart of all of humanity. How do you stand before God? Listen Jude writes now to him who is able to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy to the only God our savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen. This ladies and gentlemen is the gospel. It is the declaration of the one who both justifies and vindicates us in the presence of a holy God by his own personal advocacy and his own sufficient atonement. Here's another principle of the gospel found in the anguish of Joe. The gospel number one not only informs mankind how to be right with God but secondly it silences the self-defense mechanisms of mankind. Look at verse three. Job says if one wished to dispute with him with God he could not answer him once in a thousand times. He writes even if I could get get an audience with God and I had a thousand chances to speak every time I'd I'd trip over my tongue I'd stumble I'd come up short. There's no way I can speak.

There's no way I can vindicate myself. In other words if you did get your day in court what exactly do we think we would really say to convince God that he's wrong and we're right. Paul writes the gospel silences the sinner. The gospel empties a person of any self-help and self-vindication and self-justification and self-rationalization self-promotion self-support self-defense. In fact the Apostle Paul told us that the world will one day all stand those who do not believe and they will all be silent before God. What Job recognized in his own pain will be the picture of all of humanity of all time who are about to be condemned and they will stand before God not with all of their mouths moving not presenting their defenses the scriptures tell us prophetically this is what it will look like. God will deliver the verdict and humanity will be silent. Paul writes every mouth will be closed and all the world they will become accountable to God. The very thing the world resists the very thing that makes the world mad when you say or suggest anything like this to them the very thing that makes them tremble inwardly is that they will stand accountable before God and will not have anything to say.

Abbott Smith defines accountable in this text as someone who is brought to trial. You will have your date with God. You reject his son you will have your date in court with God. But at that future scene the Apostle Paul tells us that every mouth will be closed and that isn't what we're used to is it? Even when someone is condemned as wrong even if the witnesses are all there and the evidence is there and there is a photograph of them holding the murder weapon even still they'll write letters they'll write a book they'll make a movie they will not be silent will they?

That's our human nature. We're just going to keep our mouths moving in self-defense. According to the scriptures before this throne described by John in Revelation chapter 20 there will be no defense there will be no series of alibis there will be no excuses there will be no plea bargaining there will be no prayer for judgment just silence. This is not a trial by peers this is a trial by providence.

There are no extenuating circumstances for God himself will stand and he will both be judge and jury and eyewitness. He saw us he knows us he knows our motive he heard us speak he knows our thoughts he saw our deeds and he will be able to perfectly condemn the world for sin. Paul declares that mankind without Christ is without an advocate he is without a defender and he will be condemned to everlasting torment. Job he said this he says if I could get an audience with God what would I say if I said a thousand things none of them would work they would all fall short. You see the gospel informs mankind of how to be right with God. The gospel silences the self-defense mechanisms of mankind that would find something in themselves that would make them right with God they know they fall short. Third the gospel according to Job warns of the brevity of life.

Notice what he says in verse 25 look over there and you'll probably think of a New Testament text or two that that refer to the similar thoughts he gives here. Now my days are swifter than a runner they flee away they see no good they they slip by like reed boats like an eagle that swoops on its prey. Job had evidently watched those little skiffs made of papyrus and light bark that would skip across the water. These were the speed boats of the ancient world. He'd watch them and he'd marvel at how quickly they moved through the water.

He'd evidently seen an eagle swoop down and catch its prey. It came out of nowhere it came so fast and wham life was over. See this is the message of the gospel.

You don't have much time. Where do you stand with God? The gospel fourthly declares the incarnation of God the Son. Hear the lamenting almost prophetic words of Job in verse 32 of chapter 9 of this text he says he wails for God is not a man as I am that I may answer him that we may go to court together. I wish God were a man so we could talk so we could get this thing through. God isn't a man that we might go to court together.

God is not a man like me. He can't communicate with him. I can't see him to talk with him. He's distant. He's transcendent. He is above all. He is other than.

He is far removed. I wish God were a man so I could talk to him. And we say Job, God through Christ became a man.

He humbled himself taking the form of a bondservant. Robing himself in the likeness of men. Philippians 2 7 God became like us. And so Christ fully God became fully man being born into the human race. He became your relative and mine so that he could fulfill the law and redeem his bride. Oh the irony of Job's longing for God to become a man and God would. The final principle that I'll point out from these texts is this the gospel announces the advocacy of Jesus Christ. Look at the next verse.

This is an even more poignant ironic lament and cry of Job. He says in verse 33 there is no there is no umpire between us. The word could be rendered days men or mediator arbiter. There is no there is no mediator between us. No days men who may lay his hand upon us both.

Let him remove the rod from me that that is the days men by by coming would remove the rod of God and let not the dread of God terrify him any longer. He's referring here to the custom of the mediator in this court system. And he is saying there is someone that must come some arbiter some umpire to lay his hand upon us both. You notice that in verse 33 he's referring back to the custom of the ancient court where the days men acted as an arbitrator between two parties to negotiate the settlement.

It was the custom of the days men to put his hands on the heads of both parties that were involved in the disputation. He would remind them by that action that he had the authority to settle the dispute and to render judgment. And Job is saying I need somebody all I wish there would be somebody that could come and lay his hand on God and lay his hand on me and settle this dispute. I wish there was someone who could negotiate a settlement for me so that I would no longer be afraid of the terror of God so that the rod of his judgment would be removed. What a wonderful declaration of the gospel. We know the New Testament would tell us that there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man who? Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2, 5.

Is there somebody who can speak for me? Yes, Jesus Christ can. Is there someone that can negotiate a settlement between us and the terror and the wrath and the judgment of God and the answer would be yes.

Jesus Christ. We know fully what Job only knew prophetically. The mediator he longed for and wouldn't this be a great text for our risen Lord would come and this God man who is alive is available and ready to step in and on your behalf. He is capable of laying his hands as it were on God the Father and you. Being the Son of God, being deity, he fully understands the claims of a holy God. He is the Son of God and he understands the claims of a righteous God. But being the Son of Man, he understands and empathizes with the needs of humanity and he is able to negotiate a settlement and even as the daysman would do this, he would form and symbolize, would he not, the cross.

There in the ancient court system would be that picture of the one who would fulfill it all completely, the one who bridged the gap, the one who is capable of providing an everlasting settlement between God and man. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey and we've taken this lesson and turned it into a booklet called The Gospel According to Job. We've made it available today for free. All you need to do is cover the postage and handling costs. Please visit wisdomonline.org, navigate to the online store and search for The Gospel According to Job. There's also a link on our home page to make it easy. But please take advantage of this offer today. Receive The Gospel According to Job by just covering the cost of postage and handling. And join us back here next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.