10 Profound Lessons to Learn from the Long Term Suffering of Job
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2. BEWARE OF A MAN-CENTERED GOD AND MAN-CENTERED FORMULAS FOR LIVING BEFORE GOD
The problems with Job's three friends and the reason that God sides with Job in the end and against the three friends is this: Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are perceiving God to be like a push button. You program Him, you control Him. That is their view of God.
In other words, God's way of treating us depends entirely on us. That is a man-centred way of thinking. If you are good, God will give you good things. If you are bad, God will give you bad things such as punishment, suffering, etc. Your actions and your endeavours determine what God will do. According to Job's three friends, God is predictable in His justice. You can live the Christian life by formulas. Do good and receive God's blessings. Do bad and receive curses and suffering from Him. According to Job's friends, God is easy to figure out. With this theology, they think that getting what you want from God is just like pushing a button. Their perspective is that getting what you want from God depends on your merits and your activities, not on God's mercy.
And what is the truth about Job's God? Job's God is not controlled by man. He is not a push-button predictable God. In general, God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. That's what the Bible teaches. But this fact does not explain every case. And it does not explain Job's case.
Sometimes the wicked have abundant blessings in this life. They sometimes die fat and rich and painlessly, without getting the punishment that they deserve (at least not in this life). In contrast to this, the righteous sometimes suffer so much.
Sometimes God chooses to do things that seem unfair to us. God sometimes makes us to experience troubles and hardships that aren't a response to something wrong we have done. Sometimes, God in His free sovereignty, His infinite majesty and mystery does unpredictable, unexplainable, inscrutable things that are incomprehensible to our human understanding. Sometimes, God sends inexplicable suffering to His friends. Sometimes, God sends inexplicable blessings to HIs enemies.
And of course, the scripture forewarns us to be careful about assessing God's ways and judging His ways. I will remind you of Isaiah 55:8 where it is written that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
And then we read in Matthew 5:43-45, where it is written that "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."
So now Jesus is going to tell us something about the father in the second part of Matthew 5:45: "For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good"
The way human beings run the world is very different from the way God runs the world. In our way of running the world, we may be inclined to have the sun to rise on the good people and to keep it away from the evil people. But that is not the way God runs this world. As we have been told in Matthew 5:44-46, "... he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"
So God loves in a general way even the wicked by giving them rain, by giving them sun.
Page 1 ⇦ Previous | Next ⇨ Page 3
2. BEWARE OF A MAN-CENTERED GOD AND MAN-CENTERED FORMULAS FOR LIVING BEFORE GOD
The problems with Job's three friends and the reason that God sides with Job in the end and against the three friends is this: Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are perceiving God to be like a push button. You program Him, you control Him. That is their view of God.
In other words, God's way of treating us depends entirely on us. That is a man-centred way of thinking. If you are good, God will give you good things. If you are bad, God will give you bad things such as punishment, suffering, etc. Your actions and your endeavours determine what God will do. According to Job's three friends, God is predictable in His justice. You can live the Christian life by formulas. Do good and receive God's blessings. Do bad and receive curses and suffering from Him. According to Job's friends, God is easy to figure out. With this theology, they think that getting what you want from God is just like pushing a button. Their perspective is that getting what you want from God depends on your merits and your activities, not on God's mercy.
And what is the truth about Job's God? Job's God is not controlled by man. He is not a push-button predictable God. In general, God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. That's what the Bible teaches. But this fact does not explain every case. And it does not explain Job's case.
Sometimes the wicked have abundant blessings in this life. They sometimes die fat and rich and painlessly, without getting the punishment that they deserve (at least not in this life). In contrast to this, the righteous sometimes suffer so much.
Sometimes God chooses to do things that seem unfair to us. God sometimes makes us to experience troubles and hardships that aren't a response to something wrong we have done. Sometimes, God in His free sovereignty, His infinite majesty and mystery does unpredictable, unexplainable, inscrutable things that are incomprehensible to our human understanding. Sometimes, God sends inexplicable suffering to His friends. Sometimes, God sends inexplicable blessings to HIs enemies.
And of course, the scripture forewarns us to be careful about assessing God's ways and judging His ways. I will remind you of Isaiah 55:8 where it is written that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
And then we read in Matthew 5:43-45, where it is written that "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven."
So now Jesus is going to tell us something about the father in the second part of Matthew 5:45: "For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good"
The way human beings run the world is very different from the way God runs the world. In our way of running the world, we may be inclined to have the sun to rise on the good people and to keep it away from the evil people. But that is not the way God runs this world. As we have been told in Matthew 5:44-46, "... he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"
So God loves in a general way even the wicked by giving them rain, by giving them sun.
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