Page 51 - Reading Job to Know God

through it debate by debate, we will go through it in terms of the
principles. Chapter 3 is the foundation. How I love chapter 3. We will not
get into that now. It looks like he is bewailing his birthday, but he is not.
What you have is three cycles of debates. Chapter 4-14 is the first cycle.
Chapter 15-21 is the second. Chapter 22-31 is the last cycle of debates.
Eliphaz is the first to speak. He speaks in chapter 15, and then Job
answers him right away in chapter 16 and 17. Then Bildad speaks in
chapter 18, and Job answers him in chapter 19. Then Zophar speaks in
chapter 20, and Job answers him in chapter 21. Chapter 32:1, is the end of
this debate:
“Then these three men ceased from answering Job because he was
righteous in his own eyes.” So they stopped.
Before we look at the details of these individual philosophies, let me
show you the one basic error they all had. They had many similarities, but
they all taught one thing that was wrong. They all had the same
underlying error. They taught that all suffering is because of sin. Do you
see the idea? Those who sin, suffer. Those who sin a lot, suffer a lot.
Those who are great sufferers are great sinners. They looked at Job and
they saw a great sufferer, so they had only one conclusion. Job was a
great sinner. All three had that one idea in common. All calamities,
everything that went wrong in your life, all adversity, was inflicted as a
penal retribution of a holy God. God was angry, and God punished sin in
this life.

You see, that is what shocked them so much when they saw the severe
condition of Job’s suffering. When they saw how tremendously he was
suffering, they could only draw one conclusion. What a heinous sinner
this is. He must be a real rat. They had no idea at all about the positive
side of suffering. It never even entered their mind that God might use
suffering to wean a person from his pride and self-righteousness. That
God might use suffering to crowd a person to Christ and detach a person
from material things. To cure us of things temporal and help set our
affections on things above. They had no idea at all that God might use
suffering to strengthen faith.
That approach automatically undermines the cross, undermines the
resurrection, and undermines future judgment. You see, there is no need
for the cross if God punishes sin in this life. The fact is, it not only hurt
Job, but it was subtlety hurtful to them as well.

You see, if it is true that all suffering is because of sin, then the sufferers
are sinners and those who are not afflicted are innocent. They have not
51