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THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR "Job’s Confession” Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma July 13, 2008; No. 3419 (Printed copies in a
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prca.org Dear Radio Friends,
Many of us have had
some bitter experiences in our lives, but
none as bitter as those of Job. In one day Job lost his wealth and his
family—his flocks, his herds, his houses, and his ten children. Because of
this, many have turned to this book of Job in their distress and have received
comfort. They have read the passage that we are considering today and learned
what their reaction must be to adversity and loss in their own lives.
The passage we are to consider is Job
1:20-22: “Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and
fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother’s
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job
sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”
In the person of Job we find, perhaps, the most
concrete and down-to-earth example of quiet, brave endurance and patience. Even
the New Testament Scriptures recognize this virtue in Job. James
5:11 records that patience of Job.
But today we are going to look beyond the
patience of Job and the example he leaves us and consider the ways of God with
us, too. Within this confession of Job is found an admission of some
fundamental truths of the Bible. It is these truths that we are going to be
considering today. We do so, I pray, in faith. It is a matter of faith that we
can accept the fact that Job actually lived. It is a matter of faith to believe
that this actually happened to Job. And it is also a matter of faith that we
accept and follow what he says in this confession. By faith Job’s confession
must become ours.
Job was rich. Verse 3 of this chapter tells us
that he had a very great household, so that this man was the greatest of all of
the men of the east. Of course, in the age and culture in which Job dwelt,
wealth was not measured in terms of money and gold. It was measured in the
amount of land one owned as well as in the abundance of animals that belonged
to him. We are told in verse 3 of chapter 1 that his substance was seven
thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five
hundred she-asses, and a very great household. He was rich!
But besides this earthly wealth, Job also was
given another blessing, the blessing of a large, covenant family. God gave to
him and his wife seven sons and three daughters. And, like every godly father,
Job loved his children. Every day Job rose up early in order to sacrifice and
pray for these children.
This fact also reveals to us another important
characteristic of Job: he was perfect and upright. No, not in
himself. What is meant here is this, that Job loved God. He was a deeply
spiritual man who lived close to the Lord and walked a sanctified life, fleeing
evil and doing good.
Now, we know the discussion that took place in
heaven between God and Satan. This story of Job is well known to those who read
the Bible. Satan made the claim to God that the only reason Job loved and
feared God was that God had given everything to Job on a silver platter, so to
speak. I mean, what man would not claim to love God if God were to give him
everything his heart desired?
Although Satan said this out of an evil motive
and said it in order that he might have opportunity to tempt Job into sin,
nevertheless, his point is well taken. For this is indeed true of many. It is
easy to say that we love God when we have all the riches and all the
conveniences and all the money and all the comforts that life can afford us.
When all seems to be going well in our families, it is easy to say, “I love
God.” We can go along sometimes with paying outward homage to God, going
through all the motions of worship: praying, going to church, reading the
Bible; and we can feel pretty good about all of this as well. In other words,
all these things are not a burden to us when all is on the up-side. And Satan’s
point was: Take all of this away from Job, take away his riches and his family;
make Job’s life miserable in one way or another, and Job will curse God in his
heart. That is to say, he will complain and he would murmur against God. He
would carry a chip on his shoulder. He would view everyone else enviously. In
short, he would curse God.
What would we do if all of this happened
to us? Oh, the point of Satan is well taken.
And it was for this reason that God allowed
Satan to send the horrible hurt upon this child of His that is recorded for us
in this chapter and in the second chapter. God meant it, of course, to test His
faithful son and to purify his faith. Satan meant it to tempt him.
In one and the selfsame day, four events occurred that left Job an instant pauper. First of all, the Sabeans, a ruthless band of barbarians, fell upon the
fields of Job and destroyed his crops and his fields and slew his servants as
well as the oxen and the asses that were laboring there. No sooner had this
servant reported this catastrophe, than another one appeared and said that fire
from heaven fell upon the flocks and herds of Job and slew all of them with the
servants taking care of them. So now Job had lost his fields, his means of
income, and all of his flocks and herds.
Not long after this, another servant appeared in
Job’s presence to inform him that the Chaldeans made
out three bands and ambushed the camels, that is, the caravans that carried
Job’s wealth. They had fallen upon the camels and upon his servants, carried
them away, and slew them. And then, right after that, the final blow came, a
blow that absolutely beat Job into the ground. He heard news concerning his
children. A servant arrived with the worst of all news. Job’s children had
gathered together to eat, as was their custom, in the eldest brother’s house.
And while they were there, a great wind, probably a tornado of sorts, came and smote the house, toppling it upon Job’s
children and killing every one of them.
In one fell swoop, God took away from Job almost
everything that he had. Imagine once, if you can, losing everything you
possessed in one day—not slowly, over a period of time, but in one day. Imagine
losing your job, your house, your bank accounts in one
day and being left with next to nothing. And then, on top of this all, imagine
losing that which is the most precious possession of all to
believing parents: your very own children. Not one of them, which is painful enough in itself, but all of them at one time!
You know, the Bible tells us that God will never
give us a burden so great that we cannot bear it. But if we were to look at any
kind of a burden that would be almost impossible to bear, we would say that was
true of Job. And then in the next chapter he was robbed of his health as well.
He was smitten with a painful disease. Surely, if anyone had a reason to curse
God and die, Job did. Neither can you and I imagine how much this hurt Job.
Now, I am not trying to sensationalize the story
that the Scripture tells us here of Job. But we must realize that Job was a man
like you and me. Sometimes it is hard for us fully to appreciate the hardships
that another is going through. It is hard to empathize with them. There are
those of us, of course, who have suffered in a smaller way and can understand a
bit the extreme bitterness of heart and soul that this loss had on Job. But the
news came as a great shock to him. It left him feeling utterly empty, totally
helpless, numb. I mean, it twisted his emotions and
left him in a daze. “Where do I go from here?”
That sorrow is revealed to us,
too, in the passage that we consider today, verse 20: “Then Job arose, and rent
his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground.”
The rending of clothes and the shaving of one’s
head were both ancient customs that indicated great shame and sorrow. And when
grieved, oftentimes, a person would tear his clothes and even, at times, dress
in burlap—sackcloth. Likewise, when one felt totally abandoned and sorrowful,
he would often shave off his beard and even the hair on top of his head. Job
did both. And then, having done these, he just threw himself upon the ground
and lay prostrate there. I mean, where does one go when he is hurt so badly? Is
it not the easiest thing to say: “Cursed is God.” And,
“I want to die!”
Job threw himself upon the ground. He expressed
his sorrow and pain. And, there is no doubt about it,
he felt in his heart that he had no way to escape all of this. He was not a
stoic, after all. But his sorrow and grief were far from cursing God and
speaking out against Him. It was far from rebellion and anger with the way in
which God had led him. Neither is it a sin for a child of God to grieve when
God seriously wounds him with a loss. But we ought to notice what Job did while
he was grieving so badly. While he lay upon the ground, probably almost hoping
that he would die, nevertheless, he still worshiped God. He paid homage unto
God. He lifted up his voice and acknowledged the hand of his God in what had
now taken place in his life. That is worship, after all. It is rendering unto
God honor and humble submission. It is an acknowledgment of what God has done
in our lives.
This is what Job did, as becomes evident from
the confession that he made in the words that we are considering. This
confession he was able to make because of the work of God’s grace in his heart.
Remember, Job may have been perfect and upright, but this was true only because
he was a child of God who was saved in the blood of that Savior who was to
come. The Spirit of God worked in his heart and applied to him by faith the
work of salvation. Job recognized that he was covered over in the blood of that
Messiah who was to come and that, therefore, he was one of God’s children whom
God loved and cherished, one whom God, in His great love and mercy, gave all
things as a blessing to him. As a child of God, he had experienced the
forgiveness of sins and, therefore, the friendship of God. This friendship was
not tied to his earthly riches and possessions, but was his at all times. In
riches, but now also in poverty, God was his God, his sovereign friend, who
would not forsake him.
Job believed that God would send him only that
which he needed, as one for whom God cared. With faith in his heart, he fell
upon the ground and humbled himself before God Almighty and worshiped Him.
Is that grace of God evident in you? Is it
evident in your own heart and life? Does God work in you the faith of Job?
Would you worship God if He in His almighty control over all things were to
take from you something or someone you cherish most? Could we honor Him if He
were to take away from us our house, our job? Could we pay homage to Him if He
were to take from us suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly) that loved one? Are we
content, even if God leads us through sickness, pain, or suffering? If that is
true of us, if that is true of you, it is so only because God has worked in you
through the redeeming work of the cross of Jesus Christ.
But our worship of God, even in affliction,
comes only when we keep before our hearts a number of fundamental truths of
God’s Word. Job expressed them in this confession: “Naked came
I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The first truth we learn in this confession
concerns God Himself. Job expresses that in the second phrase of his
confession: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” That confession is
based upon the premise that all things in this world and in our lives belong to
God. They are His possessions. Job viewed, and we must also view, everything in
this life, everything, as God’s—not ours, but God’s—something that He lends to
us for a time, but something that really belongs to Him. If we do not, and if
Job had not believed this to be true, this confession would never be found on
our lips as it was on his. Especially when it is taken away
from us. Everything that we have actually belongs to God. That includes
our children too. The psalmist speaks of that in Psalm
127, that our children are a gift of God in very truth. And that this is
true is clear from Scripture elsewhere as well. Is not God the almighty Creator
and Sustainer of all things? Has not He called all things into existence? Does
not God continue to uphold and preserve them by His power? And is this not true
even with our children, who are fearfully and wonderfully made, just as we are?
The psalmist speaks of that in Psalm
50 as well. “If I were hungry,” God says, “I would not ask you for
anything. The cattle on a thousand hills are Mine.”
God possesses all things. The wealth of this world is His to give and it is His
to take away as He pleases.
That leads us to a second truth that is implied
in Job’s confession. Job acknowledges that God has the power and the right not
only to give, but to take away. God opens His hands wide and His creatures are
fed ( Ps. 104).
He takes away their spirit, and they die. God distributes His possessions to whom He wills, and He takes them as He wills as well. The
same is true even of our very life. God gives life. He has the right and the
power to take it from us. Why? He is God. How necessary that we
recognize this to be true! If we do not, we could never make this kind of
confession in our lives.
And that is the last premise that is contained
in this confession of Job. We really do not deserve anything that we receive
from God in this life. “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I
return thither.” Job acknowledges that he came into this world with nothing and
he will carry nothing out of it again when he dies and returns to the dust from
whence he came.
How contrary such a confession is to our flesh.
Our sinful flesh is quick to boast in itself, in its strength, in its ability
to achieve wealth and possessions in this life. There is a little, or even a
lot of, pride that can come with what we have gained in this world. It is easy
to look at our lucrative or our influential job and boast of our
accomplishments. We sit back and assess our properties, our houses, our earthly
comforts and what-have-you, and we are quite proud of our accomplishments. We
have done quite well for ourselves, have we not? That is the way we reason as
far as our flesh is concerned. We forget that we came into this world with
nothing and that everything that we have received along the way from our
childhood up—our health, our ability, our jobs, the money that we earn, our
houses, our properties, our position, our rank in life—all of it is from the hand
of God. He gives it to us. And when it is time to leave this life, and
sometimes even before, God will take it all away from us again.
Everything that we are, and everything that we
will be, is a gift of God. All that I am I owe to Thee.
It truly takes faith, you see, the faith of Job,
to see and understand that. And it is that faith that will bring such a
confession upon our lips as it did the lips of Job himself.
Was it wrong for God to take away that which He
had only lent to Job? Not at all. Instead, honor and
homage ought always to be rendered to God because God is the God of His
people—Jehovah, the sovereign Friend and Redeemer. As that, God had given to
Job the greatest gift of all—the forgiveness of sin and life everlasting. That
is something we can never lose as God’s children. We can lose everything else,
but we have eternal life. That is ours.
God took everything else away from Job in his
life, but He never took that away, did He? That Job believed that this was true
of him is evident from his confession: “Blessed be the
name of the Lord.”
Are we one of God’s children? Then we can make
this confession, too. And I have heard that confession from the lips of many a
saint. I have heard it from one on a sickbed, with cancer eating away at him,
and that person saying to me, “God is good.” And I heard a man sing on his
deathbed. I have heard saints sing in the times of greatest sorrow and grief.
God’s people say in faith: “Blessed be the name of the
Lord.” Satan does not have his way with that child of God who is held in the
palm of God’s almighty hand. Oh, Satan is there. His temptations are real. But
when put to the test, God’s people are held by God and confess His name. Even
in the darkest of hours. And Satan, we realize, is only a pawn in the hands of
our almighty God. Saints have been thrown into dungeons; saints have been
persecuted for the sake of the gospel and have gone to their deaths smiling
because they could not be robbed of that eternal possession that is theirs for
the sake of Jesus Christ.
And then there is the result of it. “In all
this,” we are told in verse 22, “Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”
God held the heart of Job in His almighty hand. And although, when you read the
rest of the book, Job did raise his complaint before God, never did Job deny
God. As James says, “Happy is he that endureth.” God
healed the wounds of Job. God gave him a peace of heart and soul that
eventually overcame his pain and grief. Then God gave back to Job tenfold more
than what He had taken away.
And in it all, Job learned the more that God
upholds the faltering feet, and makes the weak securely stand; the burdened
ones, bowed down with grief are held by His most gracious hand. We must testify
to that with Job. In childlike trust in God, it is good that we should both
wait and hope in our God. He knows our hurt. He knows our grief and sorrow. He
is aware of our burdens. He will give us joy; He will give us joy here in this
life. And He will give us a hundredfold more in that life that is to come.
God gives and God takes away in this life. But God will give again in heaven. And then it will never be taken away from us. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, we are thankful unto Thee for Thy wonderful, comforting word. May we, too, like Job, acknowledge Thy hand in all things. May we bow before Thee and may we confess, too, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Guide us in our lives with that assurance and with that comfort. For Jesus’ sake we pray, Amen.
Last modified: Aug.5,2008