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As we look in the word of the Lord, we remind you that only God can reveal God, and we come trusting the indwelling Holy Spirit. Psalm 77:19, and you know we are going to be looking in the book of Job, and this verse will tie in and make more sense at the end. It says, “Your path led through the sea, the way through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen.” God delights to walk on the water because you can’t trace His footprints. If He walked on the earth, you could follow His footprints. If He walked in the snow, you could see where He went, but He walks on the sea, and that’s deliberate. It’s like Proverbs 25:2, “It’s the glory of God to conceal.” God delights to hide His ways from us. And the same verse says, “It’s the glory of kings to search it out.” So, God hides it, and if you’re royal, you are going to search it out. We’re going to look today at that wonderful truth.
Heavenly Father, thank You again for the indwelling Holy Spirit whose life, ministry and pleasure it is to turn our eyes to the Lord Jesus. We thank You, Lord, in Your revelation of Yourself to us, You’ve made Christ central in the Godhead. So, we want to see the Lord Jesus. Thank You that You are going to guide us in our meditation, and we just pray You would protect Your people from anything I might suggest or say that is not from You. Deliver us from flesh and blood and root up everything You do not plant. We thank you advance in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus.
Welcome to our gathering to see the Lord Jesus in a fresh way, in a living way, whether we’re in the New Testament or the Old Testament, the Bible is the revelation of the Lord Jesus. Remember on the day Jesus rose He met the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He made this comment, Luke 24:27, “Beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them things concerning Himself in all the scriptures.” He explained in all the scriptures things concerning Himself. Everything in the Bible is designed to reveal Jesus, to show us the Lord Jesus. We finished looking at our revelation of the Lord in the gospel of John, and I really did seek the Lord about what we should look at next. Several books came to mind, and I did receive a few recommendations; quite a few had some ideas about what I should do. Some were short books and some were a little longer, but I sensed that the Lord would call me to have a short look at a long book. I say short look; I’ve got a set of volumes on the book of Job in my library by a man named Joseph Karl which is 8,000 pages and twelve volumes just on the book of Job.
So, there’s a lot to say but not from me. I’m speaking of the book that has forty-two chapters and there are thirty-eight chapters in those forty-two that I feel rather unqualified to deal with in detail. The Lord has given me light on the main body of that truth. I think I see from the Lord the direction of those chapters, but those chapters, I think you’ll remember, contain man’s human attempt to understand the problem of suffering, and there are those who go back and forth. Those thirty-eight chapters have made a wonderful contribution to my life because they are chapters on warning about arguing and discussing and trying to figure out using human wisdom what God has not revealed. So, there are many, many warnings. In another connection, we’ll go through some of those warnings, like giving half truths and all of that kind of thing. Anyway, these thirty-eight chapters are full of human reasoning. In Job 16:2, you know that Job had friends; he had four friends who are prominent in the book and three of them had come to comfort him. In his sufferings, Job 16:2, “I heard many such things, sorry comforters are you all.” He called his comforters “sorry comforters”. King James says, “You are all miserable comforters.”
At the end of the book we read in Job 42:7, “It came about after the Lord has spoken these words to Job that the Lord said to Eliphaz, the Temanite, ‘My wrath has kindled against you, and against your two friends because you have not spoken of Me of what’s right, as My servant Job has.’” So, at the end, God said, “Those thirty eighty chapters, you didn’t speak what was right.” But when I read those chapters, a lot of it looks right, so I’m not ready to discern what is from the Lord and what is from man. So, I’m not prepared to figure out all of that. I can give you the big things, and the rest I’ll leave with you hermeneuts, if you can figure it out. There’s more than enough, however, to present the revelation of Christ, and that’s where my heart is. We want to see the revelation of Christ in the book of Job.
Nobody knows the human author of the book of Job. Did he write it? Did Moses write it? Nobody knows, so we settle back on what we all know; the Holy Spirit wrote the book of Job, and that’s all we need to know, really. I’m going to attempt in four or five lessons to present the heart, the core, the theme of this amazing book. To do that, this morning I want to introduce the book, and I want to do it by covering these three ideas. #` I want to show you what I believe is the prevailing revelation of Christ in the book of Job. There are many revelations; He’s a Creator and Sustainer, and all, but there’s one prevailing revelation mentioned over and over and over, and we want to look at that. #2 I want to give you the occasion of the book, the background and why did God give us this book. #3, finally we’ll close with my understanding of the great theme; what does God want to work in our hearts as we go through this book together; what is the theme? So, we’re going to look at those three things; what’s the revelation of Christ, what’s the background of the book, and then what’s the great theme of the book? Hopefully, that will prepare our hearts for entering into this amazing, amazing book.
First of all, what is the prevailing revelation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, in the book of Job. I’m referring to a title that God uses of God in Job. As far as I’ve been able to trace it, it’s a wonderful study to study the titles of God. With my present light, I’ve tried to study and found fourteen wonderful titles of God that I’ve meditated on; like Elohim, the Mighty God, and Jehovah, the Lord that saves, and Adonai, and so on. Some are compound titles like El Elyon or El Roi, the Lord that heals or Jehovah Jirah, or Jehovah Shalom. There are many like that. But there is a title of God, and not in Job, in the Old Testament. So, you’ve got all the books of the Old Testament, and this title is mentioned forty-eight times in the Old Testament, and out of the forty-eight times, thirty-one of them are in the book of Job. That title is only mentioned forty-eight times, but thirty-one times in the book of Job. In other words, two thirds of the time that the title is mentioned it’s in the book of Job. That shows that it’s an important title. The word, I hope I pronounce it right. El Shaddai, or El Shaddai—that’s the title that’s used.
Remember that Job is listed, in fact it’s first among the poetical books. On the sheet I handed out I’ve shown you the poetry section of the book of Job, and because it’s poetry, sometimes it’s very graphic in language. He uses wonderful word pictures to describe as he’s going through his situation.
We know the word “El” means “God”; it’s translated as “God Almighty”, the word “El”, that title for “God”. When it’s joined to the word “Shaddai”, the Hebrew word “Shad” is the word “breast”, the woman’s breast. That’s very poetic because the mother gives her breast to her little baby to satisfy the baby and supply, and it’s not only provision, but there’s contentment; that little baby is content in that breast. What a mother is to her baby, God is to His people. God wants to give El Shaddai, God is more than enough; that’s how we’re going to paraphrase El Shaddai, as we go through the book. Not only the God who is enough but the God that is more than enough, satisfyingly enough, pictured by the mother’s breast. All through the book you’re going to see El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough.
It’s not surprising to me that in all the books of the Bible God would put that title in Job. You know what Job went through, and if anyone needed to know a God who was more than enough, Job needed to know that God. That’s why this title is so precious to me. The revelation of the Lord carries the spiritual message of the book, and we’re going to relate everything to El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough.
Some years ago, when I was in Rhode Island, I was sharing on suffering, and I made the comment that I felt that without counting our Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul was the world’s greatest sufferer, and not Job. When I said that, people were wondering why I would say that. It was because of Job 42:16, “After this, Job lived one hundred and forty years, and he saw sons, grandsons, four generations.” So, after Job suffered, he lived another one hundred forty years. Paul suffered right to the end. So, I said, “Paul was the world’s greatest sufferer,” and one of the brothers said so that we all could hear it, “I can see Ed never met a Red Sox fan.” So, I guess to him Red Sox fans were the world’s greatest sufferers. Anyway, El Shaddai is the title that God uses in the book of Job.
Alright, hold that for a moment, and let me look at the occasion of the book, the background of the book. I’m going to try to show you that there are two challenges that give the background of the book. What is the challenge that God gave to Satan and then the response from Satan? Actually, it was a double-barreled response that Satan gave to God. We need to look at both of those challenges, but let me first, before we look at that, just introduce, I know you are all familiar, Job to you. Let’s assume you know nothing about Job.
I think if you go up to the average Christian and just say the name “Job”, they would register trouble, suffering. I think that would be true of most people. If you said “Noah” they would think Ark/boat or think animals. If you said Jonah, they would probably think of a sea creature, a fish swallowing Jonah. If said Balaam, they might think of a talking donkey, or something like that. People are associating, and most people identify Job as one who went through great suffering. That’s why so many people say that the book of Job, and I have commentaries, and they say that the theme of Job is to answer the question, “Why do the Godly suffer? Why does God allow Godly people to suffer?” Let me say right up front, that question is a million light years away from the teaching of Job. That’s the question the miserable comforters tried to answer. That’s not the questions that Job answers, and those who approach it that way will never see Christ; they are never going to get the theme of the book of Job.
As you’ve probably heard, Job is called “the oldest book in the Bible”. Some people say it’s the oldest book in existence, not only in the Bible but outside of the Bible. But where did they get that? Where do they get the idea that Job is so old? Is there any historical references in the book of Job to tell how old the book is? The answer is no, there is none, not even one. It tells you how many children he had; they were adult children when it started. He had ten of those children. Later on, he lived another one hundred and forty years. Does Job in his book mention any of the Bible saints? Does he mention Moses? Does he mention Abraham? Does he mention Isaac or Jacob or David? The answer is no. The whole book of Job does not mention any of those Bible saints. Why is it believed to be so old? The best explanation is that you sort of have to read between the lines. In other words, if you look at Abraham’s day, and then look at Job’s day, it’s very similar. In other words, in that day wealth was measured, not by how much money you had in the bank but how many flocks you had, and how big a crop you had. That’s how they measured wealth. They did it in Abraham’s day and now they’re doing it in Job’s day.
Also, there was no priesthood, and we see Job offering sacrifices. In Job 1:5 he’s offering a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice for his sons. Back in those days when there was no priesthood, the head of the family acted like the priest, and we see that in the book of Job. In all forty-two chapters of Job there’s not a single reference to any Mosaic law, and you have many laws given by Moses, but none in Job. The setting of Job according to the first chapter takes place in a place called Uz. I dare you to find that on a map; you aren’t going to find it. Anyway, the long life, he had adult children, ten of them, and then he lived another one hundred forty years, and that also lines up with the Patriarchs with the long age of people.
Anyway, why is it important to know that this book is so old? Let me make a suggestion. If you suffer, and you have or you will, as a Christian, you can take comfort. I can go up in my study and look at a plaque on the wall, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.” Job didn’t have that plaque on his wall. Job didn’t have any promise on his wall. Job didn’t have the Bible. They had oral tradition that was handed down but he didn’t have comfort in quoting this verse and that verse. He didn’t do that, so Job when you see the message of Job, it becomes so much more precious when you see how faithful El Shaddai was even before they had a written word to embrace and a promise to embrace.
What do we know about Job? Job 1:1 we’re only one verse deep, “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.” Right at the first verse we learn a lot about Job; blameless, upright, God-fearing, turning away from evil, and that’s not man’s opinion. Listen to Job 1:8 and this is God speaking, “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth— a blameless, upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.”’” KJV says, “He was perfect.” That’s not sinless perfect; that’s perfectly open to the Lord in all His will. Anyway, Job was a Godly man. We know that.
We know he had a family. Verse 2, “Seven sons and three daughters were born to him.” We know he was not a pauper; he was very wealthy. Verse 3, “His possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, very many servants, and that man was the greatest of all men in the east.” So, we know a lot about Job; we know his name, we know that he was Godly, that he had a family, that he was very, very wealthy. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but he was also a man that feared God, a man of faith. I’m not going to say that it wasn’t struggling faith at times because it was, but he’s a man of faith.
I’m just going to isolate and pick out a few illustrations. Job 1:21&22, after the first devastation, he said, “’Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ And through all of this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” Later on he’s going to blame God but not yet. Job 6:10, “It’s still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” He had faith. I’m not going to read it now but there’s a great song of faith recorded in Job 12:9-25. On your paper I think I gave you Job 13:5, and I wanted to give you Job 13:15. Let me quote verse 15, “Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him.” That’s Job’s heart at that time. I think we’re all familiar with the great insight into the resurrection. Job 19:25, “As for me, I know my Redeemer lives. At His last He’ll take His stand upon the earth, even after my skin is destroyed from my flesh, I shall see God who I myself shall behold, Whom my eyes will see and not another.” Job had faith and he was trusting the Lord. Job 23:10, “He knows the way I take, and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” That was Job’s heart. So, clearly, he was a man of faith. He wasn’t sinless and I’m not going to say that he didn’t get discouraged, and we’re going to look at that, and depressed, so much that he wanted to die. We’re going to look at all of that, but the main direction of his heart, down deep inside where no one but God could see, he trusted in the Lord; he was looking to the Lord.
In the New Testament, James says, “You’ve heard about the patience of Job,” and I ask James, “Have you ever read Job? I don’t see a lot of patience there.” At first, I see a lot of patience but even Job confessed that he was an impatient man. We’re going to look at that in another connection. I love Job 42:6 when he finally saw the Lord, he said, “I retrack; I repent in dust and ash.” Do you know what I love about that? God said, “He’s God-fearing, he’s perfect, he turns away from evil, he loves the Lord, and then he repented. Perfect people need repentance. Nobody has arrived, and we’re all going to need what Job found in the end.
I told you at the start of this study that I wanted to accomplish three things, and that is to give the prevailing revelation of Christ, El Shaddai, and to give the background. So, I introduced the man but now let’s look at the background of this. What is the occasion for the book of Job? It’s summarized in two statements; God challenges Satan and then Satan turns around and challenges God. The challenge God gives to Satan is in Job 1:8, “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant, Job. There is no one like him on earth—blameless, upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” God is the one who called attention to Job. He said, “Have you considered My servant, Job?”
It’s important as we go through this to remember Job knew nothing about this conversation. He didn’t know that God and Satan had this conversation. When we read the book, we know what’s going on because we have chapter one, verses six to twelve and we have chapter two. Job didn’t have those two chapters. All of a sudden, his roof caved in and the floor gave way and his life was changed in moments, in a day. He’s living a wonderful life, he has a beautiful family, he’s prosperous. I didn’t tell you about his ministry. Let me just read a few verses to show you the ministry he had before he was tried. Job 29:12, “I delivered the poor who cried for help. The orphan who had no help, the blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me. I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness; it clothed me. My justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind. I was feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy. I investigated the case which I did not know. I broke the jaws of the wicked. I snatched the prey from his teeth.” Job had a wonderful ministry, and especially to the poor people.
During the height of his suffering, he looks back and he said, “Oh, I remember the days that used to be, and he describes it in chapter 29:2, “Oh, that I were as in months gone by, as in the days when God watched over me, when His lamp shone over my head. By His light I walked through darkness, as I was in the prime of my days, when the friendship of God was over my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, my children were all around me, when my steps were bathed in butter and the rock poured out for me streams of oil.” He looks back and he remembers that time of intimate fellowship with the Lord. All of that is going to change because God said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job?” God knew the answer, of course. According to the record, Satan has already considered Job. This is not the first time because he knew all about the hedge and all about God’s provision.
God’s challenge to Satan was countered by Satan’s challenge to God. Satan makes two insinuations, one insinuation about man, about Job, and one insinuation about God. Let me show you that because it’s important to see when we come to the theme. Job 1:9&10 here is the insinuation he made upon Job, “Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him, and his house and all that he has?’ Satan had already considered him. “On every side you bless the work of his hands, and possessions have increased in the land.” Satan insinuated that Job was in it for the money, that Job was in it for the blessing, that Job was in it because God put a hedge around his life, and Job is nothing but a hireling. According to Satan he’s a mercenary; he just wants the money. Job was suggesting, “God, you are just a glorified Santa Claus to Job. That’s all You are. You are just a purveyor of gifts, a patron saint, somebody he can trust if he’s going to get in an accident or something like that. Job serves you because of the hedge,” and we’re going to look at the hedge, and the hedge was thick and that hedge was tall and that hedge was beautiful and it surrounded him. He had family, he had health, he had wealth, he had friends, he had acquaintances, he had a ministry, he had a reputation, he had fellowship with God, and Satan says, “No wonder he serves You. He’s a friend like Solomon described in Proverbs 19:4, “Wealth adds many friends.” You know how Christians try to get next to the fat pocketbook. They try to make friends with those who have. They won’t say it, but their hand is out and you can see it. Anyway, that was Satan’s insinuation of Job. Look at verse 11, “Put forth Your hand now, touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face. The only reason Job has any interest in You is because of Your blessings, your gifts, and the hedge. If You take it down, he’s going to curse You.”
I told you there was a double insinuation. The first was that Job was in it for the money and in it for the blessing and just for the hedge, “You’ve surrounded him on every side with blessing.” That includes an insinuation against God, and what would that be? Satan challenged God, and he said in effect, “Lord, if You want friends, You have to give gifts.” And the insinuation is, “If You don’t, nobody will choose You. You’re not wonderful enough in Yourself. You have no intrinsic value. If You didn’t give a hedge, they’d curse You to Your face. Nobody would choose You, or worship You or serve You or honor You or obey You. Who is going to obey You? The only plan that will work is if You start giving blessings, then they are going to and it won’t be real. They’re going to try to show You that they are trusting, and so on.” To insinuate that God is not sufficient, that there is no intrinsic value in God, that He’s not El Shaddai, and He’s not more than enough, and that He’s not adequate to choose apart from blessing, that attack against God that You have to buy Your friends, and everyone is going to curse You unless You give them a blessing.
The whole conversation now is going to revolve around that double challenge, “Have you considered Job? And Job says, ‘Yeah, take the hedge down and let’s see if You are going to still brag about Job. Let’s take the hedge down.’” That’s the challenge. Job 1:12, God accepts the challenge but paradoxically He puts a condition on it. Brothers and sisters, let God pull out all the stops and believe this with all your heart, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘All that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.’” God says to Satan, “You want to take down the hedge? Okay, but I’m going to put a hedge around you, and you can’t go past that hedge. My hedge around you is not going to be a hedge of blessing; it’s going to be prison; it’s going to be restriction; it’s going to be limitation. And you can only go as far as I allow you to go.” That’s a ground of joy for every Christian, that not only will God put a hedge around us but praise His name, He’s put a hedge around the enemy, a hedge of limits. Job 1:12, “The Lord said, ‘All he has is in your power; do not put forth your hand on him.’” Job 2:6, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘He is in your power; spare his life.’”
I hope God has helped you wherever you are in Christ up to this point, to realize that God has a hedge around the enemy, the one that wants to destroy you, and that a Christian is never, never, never at the mercy of any circumstance or any person, and you aren’t even at the mercy of any wrong decision you might have made, and you are not at the mercy of Satan; you are at the mercy of God. You need to see this. God uses second causes, but they are in His hand. He is in control. Satan can only do what God allows him to do.
You know there are many Bible illustrations of this. Remember Joseph, Genesis 45:5, “You sold me; God sent me.” I love that. In Genesis 50:20, “You meant evil; God meant good.” God is behind it all. Remember Peter in Luke 22, He said, “Satan has desired to sift you like wheat, but I’ve prayed for you that your faith will not fail.” That’s a limit. Satan is going to touch your pride and he’s going to touch your courage, and he’s going to touch your supposed loyalty and he’s going to touch your boasting, but he won’t touch your faith, “I’ve put a limit around him; I’m the author and the finisher of faith.” So, there’s a limit around Satan.
I think one of the great paradoxes is the Apostle Paul. Remember when he was caught up into the third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:7, “Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, for this reason, to keep myself from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me and keep me from exalting myself.” Do you get the power of that? Satan fell by pride, and God uses Satan to keep Paul humble; He gave him a messenger of Satan to keep him humble.
Let me ask this question. Are you better off in your Christian life because there is a personal devil, or are you worst off because there is a personal Savior? Is that good for you or bad for you? The answer is that it’s a blessing of God. God makes Satan sweat to make you a better Christian. God makes Satan sweat to make me a better Christian. You look at the beginning at Job, and he says, “All that he has, look at the hedge, look at the size of that hedge. Let me tear it down.” At the end of the book, it’s ten times higher than the hedge was at the beginning of the book. God used Satan to increase the hedge, and God always uses the enemy.
I love Mark 5:12&13, “The demons implored Him saying, ‘Send us into the swine,’ and Jesus gave permission.” The enemy can’t even go into a pig without God’s permission. So, you are going to see what Job went through, and he is as safe as a babe in his mother’s arms. I don’t know what you are going through, but you are as safe as a babe in his mother’s arms. I’ll tell you now, El Shaddai—God is more than enough, and like a mother comforts her child, He’s going to comfort. Now, that’s not ruling out second causes. Circumstances come into your life, bad health or a bad circumstance or financial loss or some kind of a persecution or a storm or an accident or something like that, God is behind it. Some things come into your life as a consequence of your own stupid decisions; God rules and overrules. Even that, I’m not at the mercy of my bad decision, and some things Satan instigates because he just loves to torment the Christian. He can’t reach the head, so he goes after God’s children. If you want to hurt somebody, go after their kids. If you want to hurt me and Lillian, touch my children. That would hurt me worse than if you smack Lillian, not me.
Anyway, all through this experience Job had his eye on one thing. This is another recurring emphasis, and I don’t want you to miss it. All through the book we keep reading about the hand, the hand, the hand of God, the hand of God, the hand of God. Sometimes Job blames God but he never doubted that it was God’s hand. In fact, I love Job 27:11, “I will instruct you in the power of God.” If you have the New American Standard version, there is a marginal note, “Literally from the Hebrew He doesn’t say, ‘I will instruct you in the power of God.’ The word is, ‘I will instruct you in the hand of God.’” It’s the hand of God. Job 12:9, “Who among all these does not know the hand of the Lord has done this.” Job 19:21, “Pity me, pity me, oh my friends, for the hand of God has struck me.”
Let me illustrate this from the first chapter. We look at that again in another connection, but in the first chapter I think you remember, but let me remind you that the Sabeans attacked Job, not him personally, but they took all his oxen and they took all his donkeys, and they killed all his servants, and while he’s listening to that report, another guy comes and says, “I need to tell you that lightening fell down from heaven and it killed all the flock and all the shepherds that were watching over the flock.” And while he was still speaking, they came in and said, “I don’t know if you heard but the Chaldeans came in three different raids and they stole all your camels and they killed all your servants.” And then someone else came and said, “A tornado came, a whirlwind, and your children were all in one house and it not only knocked the house down, but it killed all your children.” He learned all that in five minutes. Here is how he responded, Job 1:21, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Notice what he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” I would have expected him to say, “The Lord gave and the Sabeans have taken away,” or, “The Lord gave and lightening has taken away,” or, “The Lord gave and the Chaldeans have taken away,” or, “The Lord gave and the storm, the tornado has taken away.” But he didn’t say that. He said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.” It’s always the hand of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, may God open our eyes to see that it’s always His hand. It matters very little if that hand is giving or taking, as long as you know that it’s His hand. If you can see His hand, it shouldn’t matter if it’s giving or taking; He gives and He takes. When God gives or when God allows the shakable that can be shaken to be shaken, so that what can’t be shaken will remain, it’s equally precious. What God wills, what God allows has the same preciousness; it’s the hand of the Lord. Job 9:24, Job said, “If it’s not He, who is it?” Job knew it was the Lord behind all these things. He didn’t have those early chapters; he wasn’t privy to the conversation between Satan and Job, but in his heart that it was only God, and this is the Lord. Job had a million questions of why God’s hand was so heavy upon him, but he never doubted for a moment that it was God’s hand. We are going to save ourselves a lot of grief if we rest in the fact, we’ve heard it so many times, that everything is redemptive. What God brings into your life or brings into my life, He may have a hedge around you, he may allow Satan to take it down, and He may take it down. It’s His hand; it’s His hand. The more you go on in the Lord, the more this sovereignty of God which runs through the book of Job is going to be precious.
I remember as a young Christian the sovereignty of God became an occasion for theological bull sessions. We used to gather and argue about the free will of man and the sovereignty of God. I don’t argue about the sovereignty of God anymore. It’s no longer fodder for theological bull sessions; it’s a resting place. I rest in the fact that God is in control, and He has my life in control, and that everything, whether He’s giving or taking is from His hand. That’s why I can claim 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In every illness give thanks.” That’s why I can claim Ephesians 5:20, “For everything give thanks.” How can I give thanks in everything and for everything? The answer is that the Lord is sovereign and it’s His hand.
We come now to the third part as we get ready to close. So, what’s the theme of the book of Job? I know the prevailing revelation of Christ is El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough. I know the occasion of this book is the challenge between God and Satan, and the hedge, and taking the hedge down, but what is the theme of the book?
Here is a simple principle. You’ve got to ask the right question. If you ask the wrong question, you are going to get the wrong answer. You need the right question to get the right answer. So many read Job and they ask the wrong question. If the question is not the question, the answer is not the answer. The question that they ask is why does God allow suffering? They say that Job is supposed to teach that. That’s not the question in the book. Don’t scratch me where I don’t itch. The question of the book is not why do the Godly suffer. Here is the question. Is God enough when the hedge comes down? That’s the question that the book answers. Is the Lord enough, more than enough when the hedge comes down? When you go through the book and you look at it that way, the book becomes alive as you see El Shaddai proving to Satan, “They aren’t going to curse Me; you are just driving them to love Me, serve Me, trust Me, adore Me; that’s what you’re accomplishing.”
Let me just ask, and don’t answer, just think, “Is the Lord enough, when there is nothing else except Him, when you don’t have anything else, when all the hedge comes down? Is it literal what Asap wrote in Psalm 73:25, “Whom do I have in heaven but You, and beside You I desire nothing on the earth.” What a heart to desire nothing except El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough!
Don’t forget that God gave Satan limited permission to take down the hedge; He didn’t give him permission to trim the hedge. He didn’t have his hedge trimmed. He had a lawn mower. He came in and He mowed the whole hedge down. The answer right up front, and this is the theme of the book, and I believe it with all my heart, and I hope you do and will increasingly as we go through the book, and I say it without clearing my throat, “El Shaddai is unqualifiedly enough when the hedge comes down, more than enough. That is the heart of this book, the “enoughness” of Jesus; He’s sufficient. Apart from every subjective experience I might have, by Himself alone He is worthy to be chosen. Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ,” and that’s enough. My cup overflows. When you have Him, you have that abundance.
I’m going to close by reading a passage from Habakkuk, and may God help us to make it our own. Habakkuk 3:17, “Though the fig tree shall not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vine, though the yield of the olive should fail, the field produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stall, yet I will exalt in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of My salvation. The Lord God is my strength; He’s made my feet like hind’s feet, and He makes me walk on my high places.” Let’s pray together and I’ll open it for discussion.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this marvelous book of Job, not what we think it might mean, but all that You’ve inspired it to mean. Will you work that in our hearts? Thank You for the revelation of El Shaddai. We just pray that as never before, as we study this book together, we might see Him as more than enough, whether Your hand is giving or taking, let us know that it’s Your hand. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.