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In The Redeemers Presence Part 7 By Andrew Davies

From the central section in the book of Job, and there are three aspects to them.
The speeches that precede chapter 19 in which his great cry of confidence in his Redeemer is found, and the speeches that follow chapter 19.
And this evening we look at the speeches that follow that great cry of confidence that we looked at last Sunday evening,
I know that my Redeemer lives.
And we'll notice, I think, a difference in what he has to say after that experience of knowing the reality
and the presence of his Redeemer from what he had to say before.
As we've seen in the absence of a divine explanation and in the presence of human explanations
that were cruelly wrong, Job has struggled with this whole question of why he was suffering.
If we were in the same position, it's good to ask ourselves what we would have done,
how we would have responded, what happens to believers when their faith is severely tested.
Well, Job cried in anguish. He complained in bitterness of soul.
His soul and his body were in conflict and in unhappiness, and yet in and through it all
he was able to cry with confidence knowing that his Redeemer lived.
So there's turmoil in his heart and soul, and yet confidence at the same time.
It's very similar, really, to Psalm 73 and the struggle that the psalmist had with the question
as to why the ungodly seem to prosper and godly people seem to suffer.
And until he went into the sanctuary, he tells us, and understood the end of the ungodly,
he was unable to understand what was happening.
And it wasn't until he realized that the Lord was with him and he was with the Lord
that he was able to interpret what was happening properly.
And that really is what happened to Job.
Soon as he regains his composure, so to speak, in the presence of the Redeemer,
it's as if his mind is calmer and things are a little easier.
A little easier, not entirely at rest yet, but a little easier.
He's still perplexed. He's still anguished.
He still finds that the mystery of God's providential dealings are unexplained,
but he's found his feet again. He's got his bearings back.
So he's able to face his conflicts and his trials within a framework.
And it's this framework that I think is the pivotal part of Job's speeches.
He's able to face his trials, as I say, within the framework of the knowledge of God's redeeming love.
I know that my Redeemer lives.
Now, in the light of that, Job is able to look at his sufferings in a new way.
And it's very important to have that framework, that context.
Very often our thinking as human beings is partial and one-sided,
and we grasp one side of the truth and not another, and we find ourselves in confusion because of it.
It's good to have the whole picture, as far as we're able to see the whole picture,
and to look at the troubles of life through the spectacles of faith.
And that really is what I think the chapters that we look at this evening are about.
So I want to say four things about this new perspective, this new framework and consciousness that Job has
and the effect of it upon him.
The first is that he is now able to discuss ultimate questions in the Redeemer's presence.
Before he seems not to have sensed the Redeemer's presence, but now things are a bit different,
and you find him grappling with the ultimate issues in a new way and in the consciousness of God's presence.
You remember that according to Job's friends, suffering is a direct punishment for wickedness.
In chapter 21, Job questions that. He challenges them. He asks,
Why is it, therefore, that the wicked seem to prosper?
If what you say is true and punishment is according to wickedness, then why is it that the wicked prosper?
Their arguments do not fit the facts, and he outlines there in verses 17 to 24
some of the facts which somehow these friends and their view of suffering, they just can't appreciate.
How often, he asks, is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does their destruction come upon them?
The sorrows God distributes in his anger. They like straw before the wind and like chaff that a storm carries away.
They say God lays up once iniquity for his children. Let him recompense him that he may know it.
Let his eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
For what does he care about his household after him? That's the wicked, when the number of his months is cut in half.
So, the facts really don't fit into the theory and the idea which his friends have.
And he's discussing here ultimate issues. And yet, in the end, everybody is going to die.
Can anybody teach God knowledge, he asks, since he judges those who are on high.
One dies in his full strength, being holy at ease and secure. His pails are full of milk and the marrow of his bones is moist.
Another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having neither eaten with pleasure.
They lie down alike in the dust and worms cover them. So, there's no slick, easy answer to this problem.
Job is discussing God's government of the world. Why are things as they are?
Why did God allow a good creation to be spoiled? If sin and Satan are responsible, why did God allow it?
Is God omnipotent? If God is good, if God cares, why doesn't he intervene? Why doesn't he do something?
If he can, but he doesn't, why doesn't he? Is God good?
Or is God somehow involved in all the suffering of the world and the universe as well as in our joys?
Those are three views which Job begins to look at. Is God omnipotent? Is God good?
Or is God involved somehow in our sufferings? He has no answers to those questions.
There are no solutions to his intellectual problems, neither are there solutions to ours.
And there's no clear light yet shining upon his soul, so to speak, but there is a Redeemer.
Whatever else is happening, there is a Redeemer. He knows that, and he doesn't know it by the process of theorizing.
He knows it by faith. Now, we know even more clearly than Job that that is so,
because the Redeemer has come and has suffered for us. We know that God has taken the responsibility for our sins
and our sufferings upon his own shoulders. There is a cross at the center of human history.
We know that God comes to us not at the end of a proposition in philosophy, but as a crucified Savior.
And that knowledge enables us to live with the questions and the uncertainties.
So like Job, we may ask them, but we ask them from a new perspective, the perspective of the reality of the Redeemer.
So however little we understand the mystery of providence, we know that there is a Redeemer.
That's the first thing we find Job doing. He discusses ultimate questions in the presence of his Redeemer.
And the second thing is that he begins to desire intimate fellowship with his Redeemer.
And in chapters 23 and 24 you have him expressing his longing for fellowship with his Redeemer.
He says that in verses 3 to 7 of 23,
O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to his seat.
He's longing for the knowledge of the presence of God with him.
God seems far away. God seems inaccessible.
He says in verse 8, Look, I go forward, but he's not there and backward, but I can't perceive him.
When he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him. When he turns to the right hand, I cannot see him.
He's struggling with the fact that God seems to be far away from him.
He asks why God seems to do so little in the face of human wickedness.
And why is man allowed to be so inhumane to man?
He questions that in chapter 24 and the cruelty of human beings. Why is there moral wickedness?
Why does God allow it? Chapter 24 is about that.
Verses 13 to 17, for example, are an illustration of it.
There are those who rebel against the light. They don't know its ways, nor abide in its paths.
The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and the needy, and in the night he's like a thief.
The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No, I will see me, and he disguises his face.
In the dark, they break into houses which they've marked out for themselves in the daytime.
They do not know the light, for the morning is the same to them as the shadow of death.
If someone recognizes them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.
Why does God allow these moral outrages? Why do wicked people prosper?
If only for a while, of course. He says it's only for a while, because in verses 18 to 25 of 24,
it's quite clear that in the end they will all be brought low.
But he's longing for the Lord to come to him and just to reassure him of his love.
He's longing for relief. Oh, that I knew where I might find him.
Now, the relief we seek in these situations in life is not found in theological dispute.
It's not even found in repenting of sins which we haven't committed.
Neither is it found in trying to do better when we weren't wrong in the first place.
The answer to Job is communion with God. That's the answer. That's the solution.
And that's why he cries out, oh, that I knew where I might find him.
And again, in verses 8 and 9, I go forward, but he's not there and backward, but I cannot perceive him.
If only I could see him, but he knows the way that I take, and when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
Here is Job longing for intimate fellowship with his Redeemer,
having begun to ask the ultimate questions in the presence of his Redeemer.
That's the second thing. And the third thing that he does is to declare his conscience clear before his Redeemer.
This is 1 to 14 of chapter 26, indeed the whole of that chapter, and 27 are about that.
Notice how he mocks his friends in chapter 26.
How have you helped him who is without power? How have you saved the arm that has no strength?
How have you counseled one who has no wisdom? How have you declared sound advice to many?
To whom have you uttered words, and whose spirit came from you? He's mocking them.
And then he affirms God's absolute sovereignty and transcendence in verses 5 to 14.
The Lord is King. He covers the face of his throne. He spreads his cloud over it, and so on.
It's a great description of the sovereignty of God over everything.
And then in chapter 27 he insists on his own integrity.
As God lives, who has taken away my justice and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
as long as my breath is in me and the breath of God in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak wickedness, nor my tongue at a deceit.
Far be it from me that I should say you are right till I die. I will not put away my integrity from me.
My righteousness I hold fast. I will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.
He's saying my conscience is clear. You're wrong.
And he acknowledges to his friends and to others that the ungodly will ultimately be punished in verses 7 to 23.
So here is Job declaring his conscience clear. He's not committed great sin.
He's not suffering because of it. And his friends have got it wrong,
and he wants to just declare his conscience void of offense, as Paul put it, before God and men.
Now we know that conscience can be unreliable. Conscience can mislead us.
It must be enlightened and informed by truth and educated to hear the word of God
and trained to respond to God's call. So conscience is not always a reliable guide.
But it cannot be ignored and must not be denied. To deny your conscience is to deny your very being.
So personal integrity and honesty ought to be maintained when we are right.
We need to be sure we are. Our conscience needs to be quite clear.
But when we are, it is important to maintain our integrity.
And as Paul did, to call on God to be our judge.
In the sight of God, said Paul, I live. I call God to record this day that I am void of offense.
My conscience is void of offense before God and men. Job is doing that here.
Well, we need to be careful about that, that we are acting with integrity and honesty,
but there are times when it is important so to do.
So he is discussing ultimate issues in the presence of his Redeemer.
He is longing for fellowship with his Redeemer, and he declares his conscience clear before his Redeemer.
And then the fourth thing, and the final thing that he does in what is one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible,
I think, Job chapter 28, is to discover wisdom's value in the person of his Redeemer.
Chapter 28 is about wisdom.
Many people argue that it's not just a kind of personalizing of wisdom,
but that wisdom actually is given here a kind of form and reality as personal.
So it's not just, as it were, the personalizing of something,
but there is actually in mind here a person, and the person being the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, whether that opinion is true or whether it isn't, and I think there's a lot to be said for it,
what I think is clear from this chapter is that however impressive human wisdom is, and it is,
there is much more to human wisdom and to wisdom than what we know and the application of the knowledge that we possess.
This is, in a sense, a favorite chapter of mine because my grandfathers,
both my grandfathers were coal miners in South Wales,
and the opening verses of chapter 28 describe the sort of things that happen in a coal mine,
but it's not a coal mine that's envisaged here, it's a gold mine, a silver mine, or a copper mine.
What a remarkable chapter it is, and it's all about human beings looking for gold and silver
and the assiduous, diligent way in which they pursue this search for silver and gold.
There is a mine for silver, surely, and a place where gold is refined.
Iron is taken from the earth and copper is smelted from all. Man puts an end to darkness.
He searches every recess for all. In the darkness and in the shadow of death,
right underground, in the pitch black, you have your lamps and you search for the gold and the silver.
He breaks open a shaft away from people in places forgotten by feet.
They hang far away from men. They swing to and fro. You can see the miners here at work.
And as for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire,
and in the heart of the earth there are these beautiful gems as well as gold, dust, and so on.
That path in the deep mine no bird knows, nor has the falcon's eye ever seen.
The proud lions have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed over it.
Man puts his hand on the flint. He overturns the mountains at the roots.
He cuts out channels in the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing.
He damns up the streams from trickling. What is hidden he brings forth to light.
Well, now, that's true of Australian gold mines as well as coal mines,
and it's particularly true of South Wales coal mines,
where the mines are deep, deep down in the heart of the earth,
and some of the seams are so crooked that it's almost impossible to work at them,
and yet human beings have had the ingenuity and the skill to get right into the heart of the earth
and to mine its wealth, its resources, and that's very impressive.
Today we admire the achievements of science and technology in other ways than that.
And these achievements are greater, in a sense, than the skills of birds and animals.
That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon's eye seen it.
A bird couldn't do it. A falcon couldn't do it.
There's something here about human ingenuity and skill that is superior even to that that you find in nature.
And yet, and yet, there is more, much more to wisdom than that.
He asks, after describing the skills and ingenuities of human beings, he asks,
but where can wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding?
You can mine for coal and gold and silver and copper.
You can search for it and find it in the deep recesses of the earth, but where can you find wisdom?
Where is it?
Men don't appreciate its value, we are told in verse 13.
It isn't found in the land of the living. In creation you won't find it.
The sea says it's not in me. The deep says it's not in me.
You can't purchase it, we are told, for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price.
It can't be obtained in the same way as technical skills.
You can't mine for it in the way that you can mine for silver and gold.
21, it's hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air.
Destruction and death say we've heard a report about it with our ears.
But how do you find wisdom?
Well, only God knows.
Verse 23, God, God understands its way. He knows its place.
So wisdom is found in God, not in man, however sophisticated man's intelligence.
It comes from his creative understanding.
Verse 25, to establish, he looks to the ends of the earth and sees under the whole heavens,
to establish a weight for the wind and to meet out the waters by measure.
When he made a law for the rain and a path for the thunderbolt,
then he saw wisdom and declared it, he prepared it, indeed he searched it out.
So it comes from his creative power. Wisdom is God's gift.
And the essence of it comes right at the end of the chapter where Job cries out,
behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.
That's it, that's it. The fear of the law.
And this is clearly a gift of grace, living before God, fearing him,
knowing that he's there and that he ultimately is our judge as well as our father.
This is the wisdom that God gives and it eclipses all other human skills and abilities.
Without this, all other human knowledge has no direction, no purpose.
Not ultimately. So the question of wisdom is a question of God revealing himself to us
and the fear of the Lord gripping our souls.
And the question that we are being confronted with here is the question, why?
It's a question that many people say we are not permitted to ask,
but who are they to tell us that we are not permitted to ask it?
Most people are asking the question, how? But the wise man asks the question, why as well.
What's the purpose, the direction? Where is the world going? Where is it heading?
What's it all about? Why are we here? Where are we going when we die?
Is there any meaning to life? Wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
So we need, I think, to understand this, that we are here moving in another dimension
from the purely material, the purely natural. There are illustrations of this.
People sometimes talk as if this natural world, this materialistic world were all that there was.
They even tell us that personality is nothing but the brain.
Not a particular area within the brain, but the whole brain functioning as a totality
and that personality is about the brain and the spirit is the brain,
so human beings are just brains in bodies and when they die, the body and the brain,
the human spirit dies. So we are nothing more than that.
That's rather like putting up on the overhead projector here the word, shall we say,
no smoking and you describe those words, you describe them as so many milligrams of ink
on a piece of acetate and that's a perfectly legitimate way of describing the prohibition,
no smoking and many people now tell us that that's the way you look at life.
There's nothing more than that or if you were to write the words on a blackboard,
no smoking, there'd be so many milligrams of chalk as we're on a blackboard.
That's a scientific way of describing that, but you also have a prohibition.
You also have the words no smoking. That's another concept altogether so that you're looking
at the same thing from another perspective. It's what we call complementarity,
that there are different ways of looking at life and reality and here you have two ways
of looking at life and reality and the naturalist says there's only one.
The wise man says the fear of the Lord, that, that is wisdom.
The naturalist says, well, we just mine for gold and we discover it because of our human ingenuity and skill.
The wise man says the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.
So there's more to life than can be discovered through the senses.
There's a different way of thinking, a different perspective on life,
and we only see a part and we only see a part partially.
If you look at a building, you see numbers of elevations of the building.
You can look at it from above. You can look at it from the side.
But the vertical, horizontal views of the building, they're both the same in the sense,
they're complementary, they're looking at the same thing, but you're looking from a different perspective.
So there's more to Job's predicament than he will ever know.
And the wise man recognizes that, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.
That is why when Paul writes to the Corinthians about the wisdom of God,
he summarizes it as three things, righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
The wisdom of God is provided for us in the gift of Christ as our righteousness before God's holy law.
It's provided for us in the gift of the Spirit who renews our personalities and our souls
through his indwelling and sanctifying influence.
And it's provided for us in the redemption of our bodies as well as our souls when our Lord returns.
So the wisdom of God cuts into and often cuts across the wisdom of the world.
Remember how Paul demonstrates that in four ways in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2.
God's wisdom is seen in the foolishness of what is preached, the message.
God's wisdom is seen in the ordinariness of the people who are saved, not many wise or mighty or noble.
God's wisdom is seen in the fact that preaching is the means through which this truth is communicated to people.
And God's wisdom is seen in the revelatory process by which the Holy Spirit takes from the mind of God
the things that God wants to reveal to us and makes them known to us.
So the wisdom of God is seen in those four ways.
Christ is the message. Christ saves ordinary people.
The message is communicated through preaching.
And it's the revelation of God to man that is important.
It's as if Paul is saying the same thing, only developing it and analyzing it in a way that brings glory to the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is in the end our wisdom.
Who of God, says Paul, is made unto us wisdom, that is, righteousness, holiness and redemption.
So, in a sense, further speculation is no longer necessary and indeed probably pointless,
which is why chapters 29 to 31, which conclude the speeches of Job, are really all, in a sense, reflection.
Job recalls his form of prosperity in chapter 29, his sufferings in chapter 30 and his integrity in chapter 31.
He's got nothing new to say. He's now reflecting on these three realities.
They're facts, they're facts that he can't get away from, but there's nothing new to add
because of the reality of God's wisdom revealed to him as the fear of the Lord.
So wisdom means leaving the outcome and the explanations and the ultimate hope with God.
The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.
When Paul writes to Timothy and Titus about the way they are to operate as pastors in the churches in the New Testament,
he has great deal to say about what they're to do, but he has more to say about the kind of people that they are.
And remember how he's really drawing their attention to the wisdom that is required of them in order to lead God's flock.
And the qualities that he mentions, the generous spirit, humble spirit, the modest spirit,
the willingness to learn, to listen, as well as to lead and direct, all of that is part of divine wisdom.
And it's not something that you can get from a theological college or a theological textbook, important though those are.
This is something you get from God himself. It's a gift. It's something that comes from prayer.
It comes through beseeching God, seeking him. It's from above. It's like the new birth. Indeed, it is the new birth.
If the new birth is from above, then so is the wisdom of God from above.
The two things come together as a gift of God, so the new birth, that good and perfect gift that God gives to ordinary people like us,
and the fact that wisdom comes with it, that's the thing that we really need to seek above all, the wisdom of God,
the divine perspective on things, and he discovers wisdom's value in the person of his Redeemer.
It's the Redeemer that makes the difference. It's the knowledge that my Redeemer lives that enables Job now to look in a new way at his situation,
and that's equally true today.
Peter mentioned in his prayer those wonderful words at the end of James, the wisdom that is from above.
Remember he talks, James, about earthly wisdom.
Who is wise and understanding among you, let him show by his good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. Meekness.
But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
This wisdom does not descend from above. It is earthly, sensual, demonic.
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.
You can't have peace without purity, and you can't have peace before purity.
The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
That's the wisdom that God promises us, that he gives to us by his Spirit,
and it's the wisdom that we need more than anything else as individuals, and that we need to ask God for more and more.
Well, may the Lord help us. Let's sing together 131 as we close.
It's a hymn about the Redeemer, and what a wonderful difference he makes in our lives.
I will sing of my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me.
On the cruel cross he suffered from the curse to set me free.
Grant us grace, O Lord, to follow you and to learn from you and to receive the wisdom that you offer and give in Christ by the Spirit.
Help us to fear you, and then we will have nothing else to fear.
Make you his service, your delight, your want shall be his care.
Help us, Lord, to live in the light of your overarching grace and providence, and to trust you and to love you and to serve you.
We thank you for our Redeemer. We pray that his love and grace may be with us now and always. Amen.