Questioning God (3 of 5)
Series: Shattered
Dave Gustavsen
Job 3-37
This is the Word of God.
We're taking five Sundays to study the book of Job, which addresses an issue that every thinking person has struggled with: why do bad things happen to good people? The story begins with a man named Job, who's described as ''blameless and upright, a man who feared God and shunned evil.'' So Job was a good man. So you would think he would enjoy a good life. But in the first two chapters of the book, his world falls apart. He loses his possessions, his employees, all ten of his children, and his own health. Life as he knew it was shattered. This week I looked at a lot of art representing the suffering of Job. And this one really struck me-it's a German wood carving from around 1800; it's in a London museum; and I think it captures the misery Job was experiencing-you can see the sores on his body and the emotional shock on his face.
And then his friends came to help him out. Years ago, I got one of those ''Word of the Day'' calendars, where you learn a new vocabulary word every day. And I still remember this: one of the words was ''Job's comforter.'' Did you know that was a noun? Here's the definition: a ''Job's comforter'' is a person who tries to console or help someone and not only fails but ends up making the other feel worse. And that's exactly what his friends did-they made him feel worse, by insisting on this formula: ''Since these bad things happened, you must have done something to deserve it.'' Because that's how life works. So last week, we focused on the response of Job's friends, and we talked about how to not be like them. Don't be a Job's comforter.
And today I want to focus on the response of Job. For 35 chapters, as Job argues with his friends, he angrily questions God. And as you're reading it, you're going, ''Man-is this okay? Is God going to put up with this?'' Remember the conversation between Satan and God at the beginning? Satan said, ' ...
Series: Shattered
Dave Gustavsen
Job 3-37
This is the Word of God.
We're taking five Sundays to study the book of Job, which addresses an issue that every thinking person has struggled with: why do bad things happen to good people? The story begins with a man named Job, who's described as ''blameless and upright, a man who feared God and shunned evil.'' So Job was a good man. So you would think he would enjoy a good life. But in the first two chapters of the book, his world falls apart. He loses his possessions, his employees, all ten of his children, and his own health. Life as he knew it was shattered. This week I looked at a lot of art representing the suffering of Job. And this one really struck me-it's a German wood carving from around 1800; it's in a London museum; and I think it captures the misery Job was experiencing-you can see the sores on his body and the emotional shock on his face.
And then his friends came to help him out. Years ago, I got one of those ''Word of the Day'' calendars, where you learn a new vocabulary word every day. And I still remember this: one of the words was ''Job's comforter.'' Did you know that was a noun? Here's the definition: a ''Job's comforter'' is a person who tries to console or help someone and not only fails but ends up making the other feel worse. And that's exactly what his friends did-they made him feel worse, by insisting on this formula: ''Since these bad things happened, you must have done something to deserve it.'' Because that's how life works. So last week, we focused on the response of Job's friends, and we talked about how to not be like them. Don't be a Job's comforter.
And today I want to focus on the response of Job. For 35 chapters, as Job argues with his friends, he angrily questions God. And as you're reading it, you're going, ''Man-is this okay? Is God going to put up with this?'' Remember the conversation between Satan and God at the beginning? Satan said, ' ...
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