Good Afternoon, everyone! I see all your smiling faces back here again this weekend and I want to give a special welcome to all our visitors and especially to everyone out in DVD-Land who'll be viewing this message later. I'll just say welcome to all of you.
Brethren, as we started last time—we covered the first sermon in a series on Book of Job—we covered the fact that the most common view of the Book of Job in our recent history in the Church of God has been that it's a book about self-righteousness. It's oftentimes viewed as this being a book about a man with a serious self-righteousness problem and that God had to bring all this serious trials that were brought upon him in this book really to humble him and to bring him to the point that he could finally be converted at the very end of the book.
And what we realized last time in looking at this in depthly is that this is really a very flawed view of the book. We realized that oftentimes this view has come about from what you might say is a reverse interpretation. And what I mean by that is using the more difficult sections of the Scripture to formulate the view of what the book is about. And those being the sections of the book where Job is really overcome by the trials he's going through; he lashes out at God; he has angry outbursts; he questions God's judgment. And at times I think in the past, we have viewed those as kind of a foundation of our understanding about the book.
And then, turned around and looked at the foundational chapters in the beginning that really explain the behind the scenes story as to how all this happened and why it came about and then, tried to interpret those in light of that view really resulting in a reverse interpretation. Because basic Biblical interpretation, as we talked about last time, is we have to use the basic, simple, straightforward easy-to-understand Scriptures as a foundation to help us figure out the difficult harder to understand Scriptures. Otherwise we wind up with very askewed conclusions.
And when we look at it this way, it becomes very clear to us that this book was not written because of this man's sins. These trials were brought upon him more because of how righteous he is. That's what the book makes very clear to us in the beginning. It also lays out a timeline for us, telling us "In all this, Job did not sin." And it says that several times as we go through the beginning of the book.
So it makes it very clear that his questioning of God's judgment was a reaction to a trial and not a pre-existing condition. It wasn't a cause. In other words, we saw last time elementary cause and effect requires—a cause has to predate the effect. And in this case it didn't. And, in fact, Job's friends even argued that this was brought upon him because of sin. God made it very clear that they were wrong. So we saw last time that this was a very skewed view of things.
And that's kind of where we left off last time. And I mentioned last that when we started back on Part II here, we're going to cover two major aspects.
And one is a context in which to view Job's trials. I mean all that he went through to really view the statements, the difficult Scriptures where he's having his angry outbursts against God and he's questioning God's judgment. Because oftentimes those words gets analyzed and really taken out of context and viewed as if they happened in the context of our everyday trials.
We're going to look at a context in which to view those properly and then, we're also going to look at this idea of the Providence of God. In other words, God is right as the Creator, as our Lord, to take us through difficult trials when he deems it necessary for our ultimate benefit. Even when that's not as a result of sin, that's not a matter of punishment, but it's something that He deems in His wisdom that we need to go through for our ultimate development. And the fact that we should trust Him in having that judgment and humbling, obeying, and submitting to that even when we don't understand why.
So those are the two major things that we’re going to look at today. And if you want a title for today's sermon, it's:
A Fresh Look at the Book of Job, Part II
Because again it's the second in a two-part series, picking up where we left off last time.
So to start off with, I mentioned that we're going to look at a proper context in view Job's outbursts, some of the more difficult statements that he makes in this book. And because this is oftentimes viewed as a book being in the context of self-righteousness, let's first of all look at what the Bible tells us is a picture of self-righteousness. We looked at this Scripture last time, but turn with me over to Luke chapter 18. This is a Scripture we reviewed last time in Part I. We're going to look at this again though just to get an accurate view in our minds of what a real self-righteousness problem looks like. So we can kind of have this in mind as we start looking through Job's situation in detail, kind of compare this, will get us a more accurate view. We're going to start in Luke chapter 18. I'm going to start reading in verse 9.
Luke 18:9. Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, (KJV)
In other words, Christ gave this parable to teach us about self-righteousness. And what always comes with this?
Luke 18:9b. and despised others: (NKJ)
That is that these two always come together. It's kind of a two-pronged issue. It's trusting itself that one is righteous and the other is despising other people—pointing out and condemning others.
And now let's also notice what this actually looks like in the example given. I'm reading verse 10.
Luke 18:10. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11) "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12) 'I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' (NKJ)
He's standing here in the temple doing what we would call today "beating his chest," telling everybody how "righteous I am. And then let me tell you how bad this tax-collector over here is." Now notice again, we have the two aspects here. One: He's trusting himself he's righteous. And the other: He's pointing out and putting down others. As we pointed out last time, self-righteousness doesn't make his less likely to see and point out the sins of others. It makes him more likely to see and point out the sins of others.
But also let's notice the greater context of how this happened. In the example we're given here, the Bible doesn't give us any reason to think that this is anything other than a normal average day for this Pharisee. There's no extreme circumstances here. He just happens to be standing in the temple on a normal average day and this is his behavior. In other words, this is his normal "M.O.", as we call it—his method of operation, of how he goes about living his life. There's no extreme circumstances happening here.
Also the tax collector that he's kind of pointing out and jabbing at and showing his despising for, the Bible doesn't give us any reason to believe there's any negative history here. In other words, this tax collector hasn't provoked him. Nothing's happened here as this story has laid out to make us think there's any extenuating circumstances there. This guy just happens to be standing in eye-shot and is pointed out and picked on.
So if you think about that in terms of what this looks like, we're going to see a strong contrast when we start going through Job's story in what his everyday life was life versus this particular picture. Because this is what a real self-righteousness problem looks like. If you want a poster-child for the problem of self-righteousness, it's the Pharisees. It's not Job.
But let's turn around now and look in detail at Job's story. We'll turn back to Job chapter 1. We read through these first couple of chapters in great detail last time. So I'm not going to read through every bit here. I'm going to summarize a decent amount of this and then we'll read certain sections that we're going to expound upon today.
But, as we all know, the story starts off and God tells us what a righteous man Job is. You know that he's a "blameless and upright man, who fears God and shuns evil." He repeats that numerous times.
He even tells us that Job is the most wealthy man in the east. And he basically describes the flocks. The ranch that this man had to have and the farm he had to have to support all of this had to be huge. His animals total around 11,000, if you just add up all the numbers of the flocks that he was dealing with. As we'll see even later it refers to his oxen when they're killed, they're plowing. That means he has a farm. So he has a farming operation and a ranching operation that are huge. I think it's also important to know in this to have an operation to handle that many animals, if he's running all of this, he had to have a staff of at least hundreds, if not thousands that actually worked for him to be able to manage and handle this whole operation in dealing with this. He was a very wealthy man. To put it in modern day terminology, kind of the equivalent to our world today: He was the Bill Gates or the Donald Trump of his time in terms of his wealth and his financial standing. So let's think of that in that context as we go forward in this.
And as we know in the story last time, God actually challenges Satan. He goes to him and says, "Have you notice my servant Job, the most righteous man on the planet?" and basically kind of challenges Satan to a duel here.
Satan's response is, "Well, God, Job only obeys you because you're good to him. You made life wonderful for him. You blessed him. You've made him rich. Everything is going good for him. Of course, he obeys you! Make like painful and difficult for him. Make it hard and then you'll see him turn. He'll curse you to your face and he'll walk away from you."
And God says, "Okay. I'll take you up on it. You can go after everything, just don't touch his health yet. You can touch anything else that he has.
Now let's pick up the story in verse 13 and see the details of what happens from there.
Job 1:13. Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house; 14) and a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15) when the Sabeans raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!" 16) While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!" 17) While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!" 18) While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, 19) "and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young [men], and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!" (KJV)
Now notice when we talked about what the Pharisee was acting like on a normal average day. Job has just had the most horrible day you can imagine! And now let's notice his response in verse 20:
Job 1:20. Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. 21) And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." 22) In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (NKJ)
Quite an incredible contrast to the picture which we saw of the Pharisee! Wasn't it? He's had all this horrendous stuff happen to him and this incredibly converted response is how he responds to it. Now let's take a realistic look at what has occurred here and what this man has gone through.
As I mentioned, he was the Bill Gates or the Donald Trump of our time. He was what we would call in our world today the equivalent of a billionaire. He went from billionaire to bankrupt in one day. With the herds he had, even the farm, the livestock were what ran all of this. They were the source of his income and revenue. They're all gone in one day. He can't even run a farm because how's he going to plow any of it without the oxen? They didn't have tractors back then. So everything is gone!
Everything he has worked for for years! Just think about this! He didn't develop all of this overnight. To have an operation this large, he worked for years to develop this farm and to put all this into it. He put a lot of effort, a lot of sweat and toil into this and then one day, he's wiped out and everything is gone! This is a very devastating event that's taken place here.
But add on top of that, notice in every case there were four servants that came up to him and every one of them ended their story with, "And I alone have escaped to tell you!" In other words, "I lived to tell the story. Everybody else died." He had to have a staff of hundreds, if not thousands—again depending upon how you do the numbers, but this is a sizeable number of people—and they're all dead! Now he developed this over many years—an operation of the ranch to get to the size that it was—a number of these people had to be close friends of his. He had to have long term relationships with a lot of these people that all died all on the same day. Just think of the loss he has just suffered.
In addition to that—we didn't read this particular Scripture this time, we did last time—he had ten children, as we talked about last time. He had seven sons and three daughters. Now previously in the story, it mentions that they would all get together in their own homes and have dinners and get-togethers together. That means most, if not all of them, had already grown into adulthood to be living on their own having their own house. He loses all ten of them in the same day. Now a man who had ten children, obviously, family is very important to him. Children mean a lot to him or he would have stopped having them before he had ten if kids weren't a very important thing to him. These were children he had raised from the time they were infants. Probably helped changed their diapers, helped rock them to sleep, had built relationships with them for years. Now they're all dead on the same day!
Think about the impact of what has happened to this man. It's off the charts! To understand this, we've got to look at what is commonly referred to as the Stages of Grief. There are major stages that an individual tends to go through when they have suffered a significant loss in their life and I'd like to cover them. There's five major stages people tend to go through.
They are:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression and
Acceptance
I'll cover those again just to make sure we've got those. They're Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
Now realize as we look at this whole process here, people grieve differently. These are major stages that people tend to go through but it's not a matter of everybody goes through the same thing. It's not a cookie-cutter situation where people start at Stage One and they go to Two and Three and they work all the way to Five and then they're okay with it. It doesn't work like that. Not everybody goes through every stage. How people grieve can depend upon the kind of relationship they had with the person they lost, their personal background, their individual personality. Lots of factors can play into how someone deals with a loss.
It's also not a linear process either. In other words, people don't progress from One to Five and move their way systematically linear through this process. They can bounce around back and forth. A person can be suffering a major loss and be in denial for a while. They can be angry and they can bounce to being depressed. They can back to being angry again. They can accept it for a while and kind of be okay and then go back to being angry. They can bounce their way through this as they learn to deal with what's happening in their lives.
And that's important to realize when you read through Job's story because if you watch what he's going through as you read through all these chapters, it's like watching a man on an emotional rollercoaster because that's exactly what's happening!
You'll find at times he's—in the opening chapters, he's depressed. He curses the day he was born. He wants to die. "Why was I ever born? Why doesn't God just kill me the fast way and get this over with?"
At other times he's angry and he's shaking his fist. You know "This is not fair! Why did God do this to me? I'm demanding some answers." Then he's all, "I trust in my Redeemer," and "I'll hang out with God and He knows best. And I'm going to be faithful to him."
And he's bouncing up and down throughout this process. That's how people tend to grieve. Especially when you look at the magnitude of the grief this guy had to be going through. He lost ten children in one day. He lost of hundreds of friends all in the same day on the same day that he lost all of his possessions and his whole life was turned upside down. He's emotionally going to be riding a rollercoaster.
I think it's also important for us to realize some of this aspect of denial. I'm sure we've all either seen, if we haven't know someone personally, we've seen a movie or a TV show where someone has suffered a major loss like their loved one died. And initially they're like, "No. This can't be true! It can't be true. They can't be dead. I talked to them yesterday! They can't be dead!" They're literally denying the reality that this has taken place.
That's not the only way that this plays out. This can also be not denying the actual existence of the event, but not being connected with the reality of what has taken place. Think of it like this. When I was doing my master's degree in counseling a number of years ago, one of my professors was kind of illustrating a point related to this and an example that she used, she said:
"You have to realize when people receive very bad news," she said, "it's something very devastating." She said, "They oftentimes go deaf."
And what she meant by that was not to say that they literally physically lose their hearing.
What she meant was they're oftentimes so overwhelmed they cannot process information afterwards.
The example she was using was someone sitting in a doctor's office and they've just received a catastrophic diagnosis. And just out of the blue they just receive very troubling news they didn't expect coming and they're shell-shocked. And she said:
"Oftentimes what happens after that is the doctor then goes into discussing treatment options or where we should go from here, and they're giving them information. And the person's standing there nodding their head and trying to act like they're trying to pay attention. But you have to realize in many cases afterwards, they're not going to remember anything that was said to them because they were so shell-shocked by what just took place, they're in a daze. They're just stunned."
And we have to realize in looking at some of Job's situation that's probably what happened in the first part of this because how do you take in in one day, "I just lost everything! All ten of my kids are dead and most of my friends are all gone too!" And you're processing that all on the same day! You're going to be shell-shocked. So the reality of this is really going to hit home a little later in terms of the full impact of what has taken place here.
Now realize also, we're just getting started with what happened with this guy! After this happens, as we've just laid out, he has a very converted response. God later challenges Satan again! "Have you noticed My servant Job? He's the most righteous man on the planet! Blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil! You told me that if I let you after him, he would turn on me. He's had nothing but a converted response! You incited me to do this in vain. You're wasting my time here because he didn't turn on me. He's been totally faithful!"
So, Satan's response is, "Oh, but let me turn the volume up even higher. Let me go after his health. Health gets to people like nothing else does! Let me go after his skin. Now we'll see him mess up!"
God says, "Okay. I'll let you after him. Just don't kill him. You can do anything, just don't kill him."
Now let's pick up in verse 6 of chapter 2 and pick up the story.
Job 2:6. And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life." (NKJ)
In other words, "You have free reign. You can do anything. Just don't kill him. I want him alive when this is done."
And picking up in verse 7:
Job 2:7. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8) And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. (NKJ)
Now imagine this. On top of everything else that has happened to him, he now has painful boils all over his body. So much so to the point that when the three individuals referred to as his friends that we'll talk about in a minute show up in the story, they don't initially recognize him because the boils have disfigured him! Later in the book—we won't look at specifically these verses—but he mentions that children were afraid of him. That adults were grossed out by seeing his appearance and what he looks like because he's so disfigured.
He's now not only in pain and miserable all the time; he's quite frankly got loss of identity issues. His whole life has been turned upside down. He doesn't even look the same anymore. He can't even rest comfortably because he's in pain all the time from what he is going through. You see there's a cumulative effect that as we cover each aspect we have to add that on to everything we've discussed previously because this is what he would be facing when again his difficult outbursts later.
Now let's pick up in verse 9.
Job 2:9. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!" (NKJ)
Again notice his response to this!
Job 2:10. But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (NKJ)
Again thinking back to the example we started off with the Pharisee, quite an incredible contrast! Isn't it? This man is in unbelievable circumstances and he's still acting very converted. He hasn't messed up yet at all. All that he's had happened, again compared to the Pharisee, this is a night and day contrast in terms of how he's responded.
Now let's talk about Job's wife. I'm going to suggest to you up front that we seriously need to give this woman a break. And the history that I've witnessed in the Church of God growing up all of my life, I've really seen Mrs. Job—as I'll call her—really given a hard time because of this particular verse.
Now let's stop and put ourselves in her shoes for a moment. What do we know about this person? All that we know about her as an individual: We know that she had ten children. They were obviously adults by this point and she had given birth to all of them. We know that she was Job's wife and they had a very wealthy household. What do we know about her as an individual? Nothing really! Do we? We have one verse in the entire Bible—one statement that she made throughout the course of her entire life is all that we know about this woman. Oftentimes she gets talked about and characterized very negatively. Not just in regards to this comment but as a person in general based upon this.
Now if we put ourselves in her shoes, would we want someone—lots of people I should say—to judge us, judge our entire lives, make very harsh comments about us to thousands of people and all that was ever known about us was one comment that we made throughout our entire lives under very extreme circumstances? I know I wouldn't want to be treated like that. So what I'd like to suggest is we really need to give this woman a break because let's look at her words in context as well.
This book is written focused on Job. It's focused on how things affected him because that's the whole subject of the story. But now she's his wife. So if she's living in the same household with him when he loses all of wealth and all of his possessions and goes from billionaire to bankrupt in one day, that happened to her too! That was her whole standard of living. And her whole way of life just got turned upside down! When all the servants, all the employees get killed, she had relationships and friendships with all of those people as well. She's had all of this happen to her in grieving.
And more importantly, she's a mom who lost ten kids in one day! It's devastating for a mom to lose a child. She lost ten of them in the same day! These were the kids that she gave birth to, that she nursed, whose diapers she changed, that she cared for when they were small children and raised them all those years. Now generally speaking moms tend to have a stronger emotional attachment with kids just by virtue of the relationship they have with them growing up and the emotional make-up of women versus men. That's not always true, but that generally speaking tends to be the case. Generally speaking it would probably be more devastating for her as a mom to lose ten kids than it was for Job as a dad to lose ten kids.
So we have to think about this in this context. When she makes this comment, the only trial she's missed out on so far is the boils. But let's add an additional factor to this. She now has a husband with severe health problems. She's now a caretaker. She's now caring for a man who's going through all of this with additional stress on her in addition to losing all of her wealth, losing her status in the community, losing her friends, losing her children, and she's now a caretaker. And she's going through the Stages of Grief as well—one of the major ones being anger. She lashing out wanting someone to blame for all that she's going through.
Now, yes, did Satan get to her and use her as a tool, you know to poke at Job? Sure he did. Where did she get the idea to say the exact words of "Curse God and die"? You know when that's Satan's exact objective that he lays out in the beginning of the book what he's trying to accomplish. Obviously Satan got to her and is using her as a tool to poke Job. Well, if we look at that in context, we have to also give this woman a break for all that she was going through when this happened.
Now let's also look at the subject of Job's friends—or I should say more accurately the individuals referred to as his friends in this book. And we're going to get to why I keep saying that. Let's read in verse 11:
Job 2:11. Now when Job's three friends heard all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and [to] mourn with him, and to comfort him. (NKJ)
We're going to come back to that in a moment.
But if you're like me, I've been a fan of this book since I was a teenager and have read through this many times. And it always troubled me for many years looking at this as to why the Bible would refer these guys as his friends. Because you know as we looked at last time, the way they treated him was abominable. If you really look at how they acted and how they just—because as soon they start talking, as we're going to look at later, it's nothing but accusations and railing and preaching at him. They're not really trying to comfort him at all.
But if you look at this, you think, "Why does the Bible refer to them as his friends? Because I know myself when I use the term friend that tends to come with an implied meaning in that that I have a fond relationship with this individual. I value the company of this individual. And that also comes with an implied meaning of kind of how they treat me. Because I don't tend to consider people that treat me the way these guys treated him to be my friends.
Well, to clarify some of this, let me share with you the definition of what the Hebrew word translated as friends here actually means because this sheds a lot of light on the subject. Now in verse 11 here, the word friend is translated from the Hebrew word reya` (ray'-ah). And it's transliterated as r-e-ya. It's reya`, Strong's number 7453. And according to The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the Old Testament by Warren Baker, here's how it's defined:
A masculine noun meaning another person; most frequently this term is used to refer to the second party in a personal interaction without indicating any particular relationship. It is extremely broad covering everyone from a lover, a close friend, an acquaintance, an adversary in court, or an enemy in combat.
Now if you think of it from that context, you get a whole different idea of what this was about. The Bible's not trying to tell us that these were his close buddies. These are three other individuals that were brought into the story. And as we're going to see here with their actions later, they were very negative individuals in this. Because what I'm going to suggest to you today, let's remember that Satan had free reign. God told him, "You can do anything. Just don't kill him!" What I'm going to suggest to you today is that Satan inspired these three men to come into this story solely for the purposes of perpetrating what is called "Secondary Victimization." And I'm going to explain that term in a moment. But again, let me tell you: Satan inspired these three guys to come into this story for the sole purposes of perpetrating Secondary Victimization.
Now that's probably a term you're not familiar with. So let me explain what I mean by that. Secondary Victimization is a term commonly used in the mental health industry. And let me give you kind of an example of how this typically plays out. And I think as you see this example you'll see the parallels between what these guys did.
Here's a common example of Secondary Victimization.
Let's say we have a little girl. She's a child. And unfortunately this little girl is being molested. She's being sexually molested by her father. She's receiving kind of the ultimate betrayal in abuse. And typical of an abusive situation like this, the father as the abuser intimidates her. You know tries to tell her that she can't tell anybody about this because nobody would believe her. You know tries to scare her and intimidate her that she can't reach out and tell anybody what's going on because, of course, he doesn't want his actions to come to light.
Well, the little girl goes along this for a while, but one day she gets up the guts to reach out and try to tell somebody. So she goes and she tells her mom. And she tells mom what dad's doing to her and what's going on. But, unfortunately in this situation, mom doesn't believe her. Mom gets mad at her and accuses her of making up stories about dad and disciplines her for it and gets on her case. Gets furious at her and really sides with dad.
Now the little girl who is being abused is suffering Secondary Victimization. The mom was not the perpetrator of sexual abuse, but she was in the role of someone who should have been the comforter, who should have been there to help her and to be an aid to her through this. And when she reached out for help, she got further isolated. She got further turned on. And it took all this to get the guts to reach out for help and tell somebody what was happening. And now the person that she's reaching out for help further isolates her because now she's thinking, "Well, now where do I go for help? Because mom didn't believe me!" And she feels completely isolated with no where to turn to. That's Secondary Victimization.
There's a number of ways that this could play out, but that gives you a good idea of what I'm referring to here.
Now notice I mentioned when we talked about Job's three friends here when we read verse 11, it says: "They came to comfort and to mourn with him." So in other words, they're coming under the guise of "We're here to be your help. We're here to comfort you, to help you through this situation." But the only thing these three guys did right was when they got there they shut up for seven days!
That's about the only thing that they did right because as soon as they open their mouths, what happens? We covered several examples of it last time. They immediately start preaching at him. They tell him that bad things don't happen to good people. And this is all just a result of his sins. Now that's real comforting words right after you've had all of this happen to you! Bildad goes in and tells him that his kids probably died because they were sinners and God was just punishing them for that. Eliphaz just completely goes all out, accuses him of taking bribes, of mistreating widows and the fatherless, and just accuses him of everything under the sun. These guys basically gather around him and take turns kicking him—verbally speaking, in terms of psychologically how they affected him.
Now research shows that when you look at Secondary Victimization, it's very damaging to the victim. When someone is reaching out for help and then they're further interrogated or attacked or how exactly it plays out. It can be very psychologically damaging. In some cases, it can be equally damaging as the original event was itself.
So that's why Satan understood this and brought these three in to perpetrate this upon Job, again, to inflict as much psychological damage and as much pressure upon him as he possible could. And he's also very much isolated him.
This is a man now who all his kids have died. His wife's having a hard time dealing with all of this. His employees and servants are most all of them are dead because four of them showed up and said, "I alone lived to tell the story. Everybody else is gone." He's complete isolated now. Children are afraid of him. Adults are grossed out by him. Who does he have to turn to? Really nobody! And the only people that we see in the story that are around him, they're taking turns kicking him. This is the situation this guy's in. This is the context we have to look at his statements when we view his outbursts is to view it in this context.
Now let's look at the subject of sleep deprivation because this is going to add some major details to this as well. Let's turn over to Job chapter 7. Job chapter 7, we're going to start reading in verse 3.
Job 7:3. So I have been allotted months of futility, (NKJ)
Now we stop here for a moment and notice that we are now in chapter 7. There are forty-two chapters in this book. And he's referring to this has gone on for months already. Now the Bible doesn't tell us exactly how long this whole ordeal lasted, but I think it's important for us to note that here we are in chapter 7 of a forty-two chapter book and he's saying "this has gone on for months."
Let's pick back up in verse 3.
Job 7:3b. and wearisome nights have been appointed to me. 4) When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be ended?' For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn. (NKJ)
In other words, he's not sleeping.
Let's flip over to verse 13 in the same chapter, just over a page in my Bible.
Job 7:13. When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,' 14) Then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15) So that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body. 16) I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are but a breath. (NKJ)
Now if you think about this, he's saying, "This has gone on for months." He's had months of sleep deprivation. And if you can look at what all he's going through, it's no real big surprise why with all the loss he's gone through, all the grieving he's going through. He's going through painful boils. He can't even lay comfortably. And the only people he's got around as "comforters" or as he describes them, they're "miserable comforters" because all they're doing is taking turns kicking him. With all the stress he's under, it's no surprise he can't sleep at night. He saying he can't hardly sleep, but when he does sleep, he has nightmares. So he's not getting any meaningful rest as this is going through.
And to understand how this impacts the whole overall story here, we need to look at how sleep deprivation affects the brain and our emotional make-up. Because this will add a lot of light when we start to look at his emotional outbursts and why this happened. Now to shed some light on this, I’d like to read to you a couple of excerpts from articles I pulled off the internet on the subject of sleep deprivation. And for time's sake I'm just going to read some excerpts from some of these.
But this first one comes from a website called "sleepapneaonline.com." And the excerpt I'm going to read is under the heading of "The Emotional Effects of Sleep Deprivation." It says:
Doctors may focus on the physical and mental symptoms of sleep deprivation, but there are also significant emotional symptoms as well, which - as any sufferer will know - can take a severe toll on personal relationships and safety. Emotional problems associated with sleep deprivation are:
Increased stress and anxiety (even panic attacks)
A more pessimistic attitude
Extreme sadness and, in severe cases, depression
Extreme or uncontrolled anger
That should sound familiar in Job's case.]
(sleep deprivation is one of the major causes of road rage)
Hallucinations and even temporary insanity can occur from a lack of REM sleep
Or what's often referred to as Rapid Eye Movement sleep. It's a deeper form of sleep our body needs and our brains need to recharge. If you've never seen that in a human, I'm sure you've probably seen it in a pet from watching a cat or a dog sleep. And you see their eyelids are twitching and their paws are moving. That's REM sleep. Humans do that as well.
Now another article I'd like to quote from comes off a website called "biologynews.net." It's an article entitled "Sleep Deprivation Causes an Emotional Brain Disconnect." And it's dated October 23, 2007. It says;
Without sleep, the emotional centers of the brain dramatically overreact to negative experiences, reveals a new brain imaging study in the October 23rd issue of Current Biology a publication of Cell Press. The reason for that hyperactive emotional response in sleep-deprived people stems from a shutdown of the pre-frontal lobe—a region that normally keeps emotions under control.
And notice what it just said here. It said, it says our pre-frontal lobe of our brain is what keeps our emotions under control. And if we go long enough without sleep, that part of the brain can shutdown. That's what it's saying.
Now picking back up on the article:
The new study from the Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley is the first to explain, at the neural level, what seems to be a universal phenomenon: that sleep loss leads to emotionally irrational behavior, according to the researchers. The findings might also offer some insight into the clinical connection between sleep disruptions and psychiatric disorders. "This adds to the critical list of sleep's benefits," said Matthew Walker from the University of California Berkeley. "Sleep appears to restore our emotional brain circuits, and in doing so prepares us for the next day's challenges and social interactions. Most importantly, this study demonstrates the dangers of not sleeping enough. Sleep deprivation fractures the brain's mechanisms that regulate key aspects of our mental heath. The bottom line is that sleep is not a luxury that we can optionally choose to take whenever we like. It is a biological necessity, and without it, there is only so far the band will stretch before it snaps, with both cognitive and emotional consequences."
Now skipping down in the article:
"We had predicted a potential increase in the emotional reaction from the brain [in people deprived of sleep], but the size of the increase truly surprised us," Walker said of the study's findings. "The emotional centers of the brain were over 60% more reactive under conditions of sleep deprivation than in subjects who had obtained a normal night of sleep. It is almost as though, without sleep, the brain reverts back to a more primitive pattern of activity, becoming unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses."
Now if you think about it in that context, here you have a man who has again gone from billionaire to bankrupt in one day. He's lost everything. That, in and of itself, is very emotionally traumatic. In addition to that on that same day, he lost of hundreds of friends. All wiped out at one time! He lost all ten of his children that he had had relationship with for years. They're all dead on the same day! He's going through massive stages of grief in dealing with all of this. On top of that, he has painful boils all over his body. He's in extreme pain. He can't get comfortable. His wife's having a hard time dealing with this and vents some of that emotion towards him. In addition to that, he has three individuals who show up and basically take turns kicking him for a while throughout this whole story. In addition to that, he's going through months of sleep deprivation and the parts of his brain that give us control of the emotional responses shuts down.
How do we realistically expect this guy to act? Is it rational to think that this guy's going to have intellectual, emotionally appropriate responses to what's happening here? Not even close! We can only realistically expect this guy's going to have a hard time dealing with this. That he's going to overreact to things. That he's going to have outbursts of anger inappropriate to the situation that's happening and be irrational and illogical at times. That's just reasonable to expect with someone who's going through what this guy's going through.
Now I'm not trying to say that he's totally not responsible for any of his choices and his behavior. God obviously corrects him later and he repents of that. But I'm saying if we look at his words in context, it shouldn't be any real big surprise that he's having outbursts of anger and he's saying outrageous things. That's what you should expect from someone in this situation. It's kind of normal.
In fact, if we look at this in the context of all that has happened, what should really kind of be mind-boggling for us, you might say, is not that this guy had outbursts of anger and he shook his fist at God and got irrational through all of this, it's that at the end of the book when God corrects him and says, "Job, you shouldn't be questioning my judgment," he's still in this state when he repents. When he tells God, "I said things I didn't understand and I'm just going to shut up, God, and do it your way." He's still in this state! Because it was after all that that God takes all this away.
And back in addition to that, the three guys who stood around kicking him and taking turns just preaching at him and accusing him of all sorts of ridiculous things through this whole thing, he even at God's request prays and asks for their forgiveness! He's willing to forgive them for all this. He's still in this state! He still has all the boils. He's still sleep deprived. He's still going through all this when he has the character to do that. That's what should shock us! That's what we should look and go "Wow! How do I wrap my mind around that one?"
It's not really a surprise that he had outbursts of anger. I doubt any of us could even handle what he went through! Let alone respond to it with anything close to as well as he did and to have the kind of response that he had.
But, as I mentioned before, we have to view these words in the context. Because what very often happens is his words are read and we go through chapter after chapter of all the going back and forth between Job and his friends and it's easy to forget the context of how all this came about. And then you just read these outlandish comments this man's making and he's shaking his fist at God and he's questioning God's judgment in all this and think, "Wow, this is the most arrogant guy I've ever seen!" Well if he said those things under normal everyday circumstances, he would be the poster-child for arrogance. That would be unbelievable that someone was making these comments under normal everyday circumstances.
But he didn't make these comments under everyday normal circumstances. He said this under off the charts duress of what he was going through with that a brain that his frontal lobe that controls his emotions was probably basically shutdown. Is he going to be emotionally irrational? Yes! It's kind of unrealistic to expect anything else from him. And we have to look at that to see all of this in context because if we do, again, we get a very different picture of all this.
Again the surprising part is he had the maturity and the character to repent in these circumstances and to turn around and to pray for the guys who were kicking him while he was down! That's the off the charts thing that should really boggle our minds is the character this man had even under these circumstances.
Let's also look at something else here to kind of flesh out some of this picture. Now, as we mentioned last time, Job's friends were all arguing from the perspective that bad things don't happen to good people. That was basically, as we saw last time even in chapter 4. Eliphaz immediately starts off with, "When have the righteous ever perished?" Basically saying, "Bad things don't happen to good people, Job. So this has got to be punishment for your sins. It's the only way this could happen." And, as we saw last time, that was a very erroneous argument.
They weren't the only ones coming from this perspective. Because see Job argued through all this book, "No. I've been a righteous man. This happened to me anyway." When God says in chapter 42 verse 7 and 8—we won't turn there for time's sake, but we read it last time—where God says to the three friends, "You didn't speak the truth of Me as My servant Job did." Well, if you look at the comment "as My servant Job did," what were the two arguments about? The three friends were arguing that this had to happen; this is punishment for sin because this has to have been about a sin. Job is saying, "No. I was a righteous man. This happened to me anyway." That's what He meant "as by My servant Job did." In other words, Job was arguing the truth.
Now God obviously wasn’t validating everything Job said because God spends three chapters correcting him. But let's also look at there's a perspective—because Job was arguing from a similar perspective in some ways in terms of an underlying belief that his friends were. That was why he was struggling so much with this subject.
Now in chapter 7, let's look down at verse 20 and we're going to see what I'm talking about here. This is Job and he's talking to God.
Job 7:20. Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? 21) Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be." (NKJ)
To put it in modern terminology: Job's saying, "You're killing me here! You're absolutely killing me with this." But follow the logic of what he's arguing. "What have I done to You, God, that you're doing this to me?" What's the underlying logic behind that whole form of thinking? Bad things don’t happen to good people. "I've been righteous. I've been faithful to You. So why are You treating me like this? What have I done to You to tick You off that you want to treat me like this? What have I done that's so bad? And if I've done something so bad, why can't You forgive me and let's get beyond this?"
The underlying logic of the whole thing is bad things don't happen to good people. So therefore, he's demanding an answer from God saying, "Tell me what I did wrong!" He's wanting God to justify it. And if you follow through this book for numerous chapters, he's coming at this subject again and again from different ways. But the underlying logic is basically he's asking God to justify this to him. "What did I do to bring this about because I think I've been faithful?" God agreed. You know in the beginning of the book, He made it very clear he didn't do anything to deserve this.
But if you notice, he keeps asking that question all throughout the book and if you look at those last three chapters where God goes on His discourse correcting him, what you're going to notice is God completely sidesteps the question. He never comes back and says, "Job, here's why I did this to you. Here's what you did." God's already made it clear from the beginning he didn't do anything in terms of a sin that he's being punished for this.
What God's telling him through the whole thing—if you read through those three chapters, it's primarily a nature appreciation course, you might call it. It's "Where were you when I formed the foundations of the earth? What did I attach them to? If you understand, tell me. Why do the waves and the sea stop on the beach at a particular point and not go any further? Please explain it to me. Why does the eagle fly? How does that work?" And He keeps walking him through all these parts of nature, because the logic He's appealing to is "Job, I'm the Creator and you're My creation. I'm bigger than you. I'm smarter than you. I'm wiser than you. I've been around a lot longer than you. And there's stuff I know that you just don't understand. And you're just going to have to accept that."
See Job was asking the wrong question! His whole point was "Justify to me why this has happened!" Again, from the framework of "What have I done in terms of a sin that I'm being punished for that this has been retribution upon me for?"
Well, that wasn't even the issue. God makes that very clear in the first several chapters and in His condemnation to Job's friends. That was not the issue. His whole point was, "I'm the Creator. I have the right to do this. I'm wiser than you. And you're going to have to accept that. You're going to have to deal with the subject and just accept My judgment even when you don't understand it."
That's what Job came to see at the end when he says, "Oh, I've uttered things I didn't understand—too great for me that I just didn't know." In other words, "Lord, I'll just shut up and do it Your way, God." Because God never gave him an explanation as to what happened! What Job came to see was God is this great all-knowing, all-powerful individual who's smarter and wiser and more just than me and I just have to accept His judgment at times when I don't get, I don't understand it.
Because what this book is, as I mentioned before, it's primarily about the Providence of God. I'm not suggesting for a moment that the only lesson in this book. There's forty-two chapters. There's tons of lessons here. But the primary point here is not about sin. It's not about self-righteousness. It's about God's right as our Creator to take us through trials that can be difficult and hard for us to go through at times when we don't understand it, we didn't do anything from a sin standpoint to deserve this happening, but we have to suffer through it and endure it. And we have to trust God's judgment that it ultimately turns out for our best benefit even when we don't understand why it's happening, even when it makes not sense to us at all when it's taking place!
The Bible refers to it as "partaking a part of Christ's suffering" or "suffering as Christ suffered." Let's take a look at that quickly. Let's turn over to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, we're going to start reading in verse 16. It says:
Romans 8:16. The Spirit [itself] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17) and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, (NKJ)
And now notice this next phrase!
Romans 8:17b. if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. (NKJ)
In other words, a condition of obtaining salvation, being born into God's Family is that we're willing to suffer with Christ, to take on His sufferings as well.
Now how did Christ suffer? He suffered through no fault of His own. It can't be said with any of what He went through, any of His sufferings, that He was reaping the ramifications, the nature results of His own sins or His own mistakes. He didn't make any! When He suffered it, was through no fault of His own.
But we're told that as a Christian requirement, part of what we will have to do is suffer at times when we didn't do anything from a sin nature, aspect of sin, to deserve it in that aspect. Now, truthfully as human beings, most of the time when we suffer, it's a result of our own bad choices. It's our own sins or our own dumb decisions are the majority of the troubles that we have. But what this is telling us is that as Christians, we're going to have times that we suffer and we got through adversity and we have to deal with hard trials even when we were doing what was right! Even when we're being persecuted and when we're doing what was right in God's eyes and we're suffering anyway and from that standpoint you can look at it as unjust—you know from the standpoint that we didn't do something to deserve this—but we're told that we have to patiently endure that anyway that that is a part of what we're required to do as a Christian.
Let's look at this subject also in the book of 2 Peter. It tells us a little more detail. Actually it's 1 Peter. We'll go to 1 Peter the second chapter. It's 1 Peter 2, we're going to start reading in verse 19. It says:
1 Peter 2:19. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, [enduring] wrongfully. (NKJ)
In other words, through no fault of their own!
1 Peter 2:20. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer [for it], if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. (NKJ)
In other words, "When you patiently endure, when you didn't do anything to deserve this—it's not being punished for your sins—it just happened to you anyway and you were doing what was right."
Now notice verse 21:
1 Peter 2:21. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that [we] should follow His steps: (NKJ)
In other words, this is how Christ suffered. He suffered through no fault of his own and He led us an example that we should do the same thing knowing that that's part of the contract. That's part of what we have to go through. And there are times that God decides to test us or to refine us for whatever reason that we may not understand at that time. But we're required to patiently endure that and to trust His judgment. Even if at that time, it makes no sense to us and we don't know how to put it all together.
Because, in many cases, there are times that we're going to understand only later. I mean even after this life—why it all happened—because we're not capable of grasping it all now. And we have to grasp it. God has that perspective and He understands and sees things in a much bigger point of view than we're able to. And we just have to trust him.
That was the very lesson that Job was coming to learn in all of this. Because again his whole point of view was "Why is this happening? Justify to me from a sin standpoint why this has taken place." He was asking the wrong question. That's why when God corrected him it wasn't "Here's all your sins, Job." It was, "You shouldn't be questioning My judgment." And that's why He went into multiple chapters of "Let's get this straight of who I am and who you are. And I'm a lot smarter than you and wiser than you and you just need to trust me because that's how this is going to have to work."
See that's what this book is primarily about. It's about the Providence of God. And it is the Bible's most thorough and primary example on taking on Christ's suffering and suffering as He did. And let me show you why I say that.
Let's turn back over to James chapter 5 where we started this study and this time we're going to start in verse 10. James chapter 5 and we'll start reading in verse 10. It says:
James 5:10. My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. (NKJ)
Now it's telling us, "Look to these heroes of the Old Testament as an example to follow in the subject of suffering and taking it patiently." Because what happened with most of these guys—these prophets of the Old Testament? The majority of them were murdered when they were doing what was right and when they were doing what God wanted them to do. And they lost their lives anyway in doing that.
But in telling us to look to these heroes of the Old Testament as the example that we should look to in this subject of patiently enduring through the suffering we have to deal with, who's pointed out as the number one chief example called out by name? Let's read verse 11.
James 5:11. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the [patience] of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. (NKJ)
Who of all those examples are we to look to as the primary example pointed out by name on this subject? Job—the patience of Job—is where we're to look to because that's what he was learning, to patiently endure even when he was suffering through no fault of his own through unbelievable circumstances.
That's why God picked a man who He said was the most righteous man on the planet. He went on and on about how incredibly righteous he was. Again if He had picked someone caught up in a major sin, it confuses the entire subject. That's why He picked this individual to teach this lesson.
But He also particularly picked this individual, He turned the volume up so high that we would have to see this man struggling and going through some difficulties as he goes through all this.
And to understand this particular lesson, let's turn back over to Job chapter 19. And we'll look at a statement Job made here to kind of understand why and then look at a broader lesson. Job chapter 19 and we're going to start in verse 23. It says:
Job 19:23. "Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! 24) That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! (NKJ)
He's sitting here saying, "I wish this was recorded and I wish this was preserved forever." Well, it was because we have it here. And it was essentially written in stone, engraved in a rock forever because it was included in the Bible and here we have it thousands of years later.
But I don't personally believe that God heard him say that and decided, "Okay, I'll take you up on that. We'll write that in a book." I think God was way ahead of him. I think when God said, "Hey, Satan, have you noticed My servant Job?" and started this whole ordeal, He already had in mind the subject of writing this. And let's understand why.
Now if you look at Job's comments here when he's going on about why and "I wish all of this was written in a book. I wish this could be preserved forever," let's get a little bit into his head and understand some of the emotion behind saying that. This is a man feeling very isolated who has gone through all of these horrendous trials. He says children are afraid of him. Adults are grossed out by him. Most of his family is dead. A lot of all of his close friends are all dead at this point. And the only people he's got around him are those who are taking turns kicking him basically. He's go no where to turn. No one to reach out to for understanding or to help him!
Now a very common desire that we all have as human beings, especially when we're going through something very difficult, very traumatic in our lives, is the desire to be understood. We even have terminology for that today. We oftentimes refer to having our feelings validated or validating someone's feelings in what they're going through. What that is about is the desire to be understood. We want somebody else to get it. We want someone else to understand what we're going through to get what we're experiencing and what it's like for us to go through it. Because there's just something therapeutic in feeling about that that somebody else understands I'm not completely alone. Someone gets what I'm going through. That's what Job was reaching out for. He wanted to be understood. He wanted somebody to get what he's going through. Unfortunately in our time, he was still misunderstood even though it was written in a book. But this was recorded as an example for us so that we could get the very thing he was longing for—the desire to be understood.
See we can all look at Christ's example. And it's a great one to look at. He's the ultimate example to follow. But Christ never messed up. We never see him making a mistake and falling down and having to eat His own words and to repent from some of that. He goes through everything perfectly!
Sometimes we as human beings, we just want someone to relate to that goes through some of the same emotional struggles, who's copped an attitude themselves in dealing with something and had to deal with it. God gave us that. He gave us forty-two chapters of it—of an individual going through all this, riding the emotional rollercoaster, dealing with the feelings of abandonment and betrayal by all those around him, even feeling like God had deserted him and God was sitting up there looking at ways to kick him because he actually accused God of that. "You're just up there thinking of ways to torture me," because that's how he felt. Again, he was irrational through all that he was going through, but we get to see that example! And to see that all that he went through when we're struggling through difficult and painful trials and we can't make sense of it or understand why.
And more than that, we can see the incredible example of a man going through all of this at the same time, who even when he didn't understand why this was happening—and we have no reason to believe he knew the behind the scenes story when God's telling him, "Don't question my judgment"—for he had to stop and say, "You know what? I'm just going to suck it up and deal with it. God knows what He's doing. I don't understand why. But He's God and I'm the human and I'm just going to accept His will in this and go along with it because He's smarter than me and maybe I'll understand it someday."
And even more than that—because one of the most difficult things for us to do as human beings is to pray for our enemies, is to try to be good to the people who are kicking you when you're down. Now that's one of the hardest things that we have to do. This guy sets an unbelievable example! Through all of this, through his sleep deprived brain and everything he's dealing with, he's willing to go pray asking God to forgive these three morons who've been kicking him this whole time! That's character. That's an unbelievable amount of character!
God gave us all that example so that we could look to that. So that we could implement that in our own lives and have someone to help us through our difficult trials. Because you see if we look at all of it, as we read earlier as James told us, we're given an example of the patience of Job and the end intended by the Lord. But we have to look at the end intended by the Lord in a number of ways. In Job's situation, yes, physically God gave him back everything he lost. He's restored to his riches and even greater riches. He's blessed with more children again. He gets back to where he was and even a better spot.
But that doesn't even begin to tell the story. Because as Paul tells us, "If we have hope only in this life, we are of all men most pitiable." In other words, if you've got to suffer for times when you didn't do anything to deserve it, especially trials of this kind of magnitude, and this is your physical life and this is all there is, man, you got the short end of the stick! So you have to look beyond that!
Because look at it like this, put yourself in Job's shoes. See he's going to come up in the first resurrection as a firstfruit. He's standing at the marriage supper over the sea of glass witnessing the coronation of Jesus Christ and everybody else given their crowns, and seeing all that. And I can guarantee you when he's standing there at the marriage supper he's not going to be thinking, "Man, can you believe all the crap I had to go through in my physical life and what I got put through! I got ripped off." No, I think he's going to be standing there saying, "You know what? If that's what I had to go through to be here, it was worth it!" Because he's going to see the end intended by the Lord.
But I think he's going to see other things that he couldn't possibly have understood in his physical life either. See his words were written in a book and they were recorded forever (voice begins choking up). So he's going to get to talk to all the people who were touched by his story, who were there having that conversation with him in many ways because of the example he set. Being touched by his story and what he went through. And he's going to get to hear all the firsthand accounts. If you haven't guessed already, I intend to be one of those people telling him that. And I suspect I'll have to stand in line to do it because I think there's going to be a bunch of us there to tell that with him. And as he stands there and hears all the first hand accounts of all the lives he touched and all the people he helped be there as a part of all of this, he will get to understand the end intended by the Lord at a level he couldn't possibly have understood as a human being!
That's why we have to trust God's judgment in the overall picture because He's seeing stuff we can't quite grasp yet. That's why the whole moral of this story God was telling him was, "You just need to shut up and follow Me and accept My judgment because you can't even grasp it all yet."
You see, Brethren, if we can understand this story properly, if we use basic biblical interpretation—use the basic straightforward Scriptures to help us understand the difficult ones and get a proper orientation with that—and then read his words in context. They didn't happen under everyday normal circumstances. They happened under extreme duress. And if we read that properly and properly interpret this book, then we can use it as the example it was intended to. So that we can follow that example and we can learn the lessons taught by this. And practice in our own lives the patience of Job and the end intended.
Transcribed by kb July 19, 2010.