Job Seeks God in Suffering

Saints,

Here again are my rough notes from the Sunday sermon. I apologize for not having them as a more detailed expression of what was preached. Prayerfully, we will begin putting the sermon MP3 on iTunes.

Job Seeks God in Suffering
Job 2:11-13 & 3:1-26


The Three Friends Arrive
They had planned to meet and show sympathy and comfort.
They had not recognized him from a distance by his disfigurement.
How did they know to come?
How long of time had passed since the disasters till their arrival?
Common courtesy was that the guests would not speak till spoken to. So for seven days and seven nights they silently waited. Mourning the dead 7 days was a common practice.


Job Wishes He had Never Been Born
The expression of grief and pain
Job breaks forth is an emotional Lament
3:3-10 are rhetorical in nature, and often a curse. They call in the “fairness” of life. Her we get a glimpse of the despondency and depression that is now setting in. He did not just want to hold onto his life as satan had accused, but he was looking at the purposelessness of continuing on.
3:11-16 Job wonders his reason for having been born.
3:26 The lack of rest from affliction is a problem that many of us face. The failure to have hope in future grace bewilders us. Note that Job had no idea of the coming Savior or the richness of God’s kingdom. This is where the Christian turns for truth to set them free despite circumstances.



The silence is a customary way of morning and grieving with a friend.

The three friends represent 3 geographical and thus cultural perspectives. We often get a variety of “Advisements” when we have problems. Job contains 3 cycles of speech looking at suffering. Like a great play, this story has passion and drama, Job however is very real.
This is an apologetic on suffering. The pain we can relate to, but moso we need to relate to know God.

3 tests in Job
• Disaster test, sudden loss both material and biological
• Emotional and physical
• Theological test
Here Job will be tested in his discernment of the experience. This is his most detailed challenge.

Read Verses here
The sudden burst of communication is the rending of Job’s heart.
It is not a pity party
He is finding that he is falling into the foolish talk his wife had advised him.

See the pain involved. Satan had started the first two tests, material and emotional. Now the natural course takes its course.

God is not ignoring Job’s Pain. He is building up in Job a time of learning, of character, and of discernment. These can only come through the pain of waiting and meditation on the issues at hand rather than rushing through them. We must take time to meditate and explore the word. What led the Pharisees to their missing the mark was their failure to think the Gospel through, they stopped at their first and most self serving conclusions.


Job has not been having his times of worship. (In the end he will return to worship)

Quotes Part 5

Persevering Quotes from the Christian World at Large part V
Affliction

Please note that these are a compilation from various internet sources

I need to thank the following sites
http://www.thegracetabernacle.org/quotes/gracequotes.html
http://www.spurgeongems.org/iquotes.htm

AFFLICTION

Affliction is one of God's medicines! By it He often teaches lessons which would be learned in no other way. By it He often draws souls away from sin and the world, which would otherwise have perished everlastingly. Health is a great blessing but sanctified disease is a greater. Prosperity and worldly comfort, are what all naturally desire, but losses and crosses are far better for us if they lead us to Christ. Let us beware of murmuring in the time of trouble. Let us settle it firmly in our minds, that there is a meaning, a 'needs be', and a message from God in every sorrow that falls upon us. There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction. There is no commentary that opens up the Bible so much as sickness and sorrow. The resurrection morning will prove, that many of the losses of God's people were in reality, eternal gains. Thousands at the last day will testify with David, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" (Psalm. 119:71)! J.C. Ryle The Gospel of John.

No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in the wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have “learned in suffering what they taught in song.” In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim’s Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He put them in the fire. George MacDonald

Your afflictions may only prove that you are more immediately under the Father's hand. There is no time that the patient is such an object of tender interest to the surgeon, as when he is bleeding beneath his knife. So you may be sure if you are suffering from the hand of a reconciled God, that His eye is all the more bent on you. Robert Murray McCheyne

(Affliction) brings out graces that cannot be seen in a time of health. It is the treading of the grapes that brings out the sweet juices of the vine; so it is affliction that draws forth submission, weanedness from the world, and complete rest in God. Use afflictions while you have them. Robert Murray McCheyne Comfort in Sorrow, Christian Focus, 2002, p. 25, Used by Permission.

(Affliction is sometimes) sent for the conversion of the soul. Sometimes in health the Word does not touch the heart. The world is all. Its gaieties, its pleasures, its admiration, captivate your mind. God sometimes draws you aside into a sickbed, and shows you the sin of your heart, the vanity of worldly pleasures and drives the soul to seek a sure resting-place for eternity in Christ. O happy sickness that draws the soul to Jesus (Job 33, Psm. 107). Robert Murray McCheyne Comfort in Sorrow, Christian Focus, 2002, p. 6, Used by Permission.

God's children should not doubt His love when He afflicts. Christ loved Lazarus peculiarly, and yet He afflicted Him very sore. A surgeon never bends his eye so tenderly upon his patient, as when he is putting in the lancet, or probing the wound to the very bottom. And so with Christ – He bends His eye most tenderly over His own at the time He is afflicting them… A goldsmith when he casts gold into the furnace looks after it. Robert Murray McCheyne Comfort in Sorrow, Christian Focus, 2002, p. 11, Used by Permission.

(Affliction) shows the power of Christ's blood, when it gives peace in an hour of trouble, when it can make happy in sickness, poverty, persecution and death. Do not be surprised if you suffer, but glorify God. Robert Murray McCheyne Comfort in Sorrow, Christian Focus, 2002, p. 24-25, Used by Permission.

I find afflictions to be good for me. I have always found them so. Afflictions are happy means in the hands of the Holy Spirit to subdue my corruptions, my pride, my evil passions, my inordinate love to the creature. Afflictions soften my hard heart, bring me to my knees, increase faith, increase love, increase humility, increase self-denial. Afflictions make me poor in spirit, and nothing in my own eyes. Joseph Williams

Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls. C.H. Spurgeon

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. C.H. Surgeon

The furnace of affliction is a good place for you, Christian; it benefits you; it helps you to become more like Christ, and it is fitting you for heaven. C.H. Spurgeon

As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it. C.H. Spurgeon

Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us with the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. C.H. Spurgeon

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary. C.H. Spurgeon

There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and that Sovereignty will sanctify them all. C.H. Spurgeon Divine Sovereignty, 1856.

The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness. John Flavel The Fountain of Life, 1671.

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. Matthew Henry

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines. Samuel Rutherford

Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride. Richard Sibbes

There are some things good but not pleasant, as sorrow and affliction. Sin is pleasant, but unprofitable; and sorrow is profitable, but unpleasant. As waters are purest when they are in motion, so saints are generally holiest when in affliction. William Secker