Last Thursday, whether you noticed it or not, perhaps you heard it said in the media, but it was the first day of Summer. Certainly as we all talk and complain about the heat, in the Summer and the cold in the Winter, the fact that it was the first day of Summer means that the Sun has reached its highest point in the northern hemisphere and now will be heading south again. Indeed, as God created the heavens and the earth, as God put the stars in the skies to mark for times and seasons, yes, as God is in control and has set boundaries, as He tells Job in our text, we know God is faithful and just to keep His promises. Indeed, God is in control, no matter what we might hear said in our world today.
Moving on to our text, let me start by asking the question you have no doubt heard before. Why do bad things happen to good people? That is a question that is often asked, especially by someone who thinks they are good and has had something they think is bad happen to them. The problem is, the question is wrong. We are not good people, as we think we are, rather we are bad people. We are sinful human beings. We are conceived and born in sin. Every inclination of our heart is evil all the time. The question we should ask is, “Why do good things happen to bad people?” The answer is, because we have a gracious God who loves us so much that He always works out the best for us in any and all, and especially in all bad, situations. We may not understand why, but we are thankful to our Lord for all His goodness to us.
Our text for today is the beginning of the conclusion of the book of Job. The book of Job was written to help us understand and answer the profound question of God and suffering. In the beginning of the book of Job we are told that the angels have come to present themselves before that Lord and devil is with them. We are also told that it is the Lord who initiates the dialogue that leads to the testing of Job. God has confidence in His servant Job, that his faith is not because of his wealth but because of his special relationship with the Lord.
The testing of Job begins. Satan afflicts Job so that he loses his sons and daughters. He loses his livestock, his buildings. He loses everything, and yet, Job does not sin by charging God with any wrongdoing. This leads to the second test. The angels present themselves again to the Lord and again the devil is with them. The devil suggest that Job is only true to God because he still has his health. “Take his health, take his faith,” is the devil’s challenge. Thus, God allows the devil to strike Job, but not to take his life.
The rest of the book of Job contains a series of speeches between Job and his “friends” and I would put quotes around the word “friends” because when you listen to them they do not sound too much like friends, anyway, the rest of the book of Job contains a series of speeches between Job and his “friends,” as they try to figure why all these bad things are happening to Job and as they try to figure God out.
Our text begins at chapter thirty-eight with God taking His turn to speak. We begin at verse one, “1Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone” (v. 1-6).
God answers Job out of the storm. Job and his friends have been debating about God, who He is, what He is like and so on. Job has challenged the Lord to answer him. Here we see the Lord coming in the form of a storm, maybe a storm of anger, but a storm nonetheless and a storm that shows these men some of the power of the Lord.
The Lord, in a way, answers Job’s challenge to come and answer him, but instead of answering, God asks questions. God’s questions bite hard with sarcasm because He knows that Job cannot answer them. God’s asks, “where were you when I created the world?” “If you are so smart about all these things, then tell me how the world was created.”
God asks, “who planned and measured the building of the earth? Who laid its cornerstone?” We live in a world in which we think that if we can explain something, then we have power over it. Some people actually believe we can control the weather. We think that we know a lot about this world in which we live. Scientist try to explain the beginning of the world with theories that leave God out. Certainly God asks them the same question He asked Job, “Were you there at the creation of the world?” “If your were not there then you need to quit making up false theories of the creation of the world.” The Lord was there, He created the world and He tells us how He did it in His Holy Word. I am amazed at how many people will believe the theories of fallible humans, theories that are constantly being changed, over believing the Word of God.
For some reason, we human beings equate knowledge with power. It happened in the Garden of Eden. It happened with Job and his friends. It happens still today. The devil continues to deceive us with his lies and cunning. To Adam and Eve he suggested that they could be like God if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Job and his friends thought they could be like God if they could understand and explain Him. We would like to think that if we could fully understand and completely explain God then we would be like Him as well. God confronted Adam and Eve. He confronted Job. He confronts us. All we can do is admit our ignorance and inability to redeem ourselves. We are left to entrust ourselves to the Lord, even when His purposes are unclear to us.
Continuing in our text, the Lord’s questions show His all preserving hand. We continue at verse seven, “7when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?” (v. 7-11).
Our Lord shows His great love for us in many ways. He shows His love for us in the fact that He set boundaries. He set boundaries for the sea and the dry ground. The sea has its place, the dry ground has its place. And here we might find encouragement to understand that no matter how the climate might change, God is in charge and He has promised that the sea, the oceans, will never be able to get out of their boundaries, because God set their boundaries. God also set boundaries for the heavens. He set boundaries for all the earth. He set boundaries for all of creation which are obeyed.
He has also sets boundaries for us. This setting of boundaries is something that we do not seem to realize, and/or do not want to recognize. We are a people, a society, a culture, that often sees boundaries as bad things, or as obstacles to overcome. God gives us boundaries because of His love for us. God gives us boundaries so that we might have law and order, peace and harmony. Children are a good example of the good purpose that boundaries serve. Children want and need boundaries. They feel safe knowing what are the boundaries. Of course, they do test the boundaries, but they do that so that they know they are safe within the boundaries. If we tell our children that hitting will not be tolerated, of course they will test that boundary and hit, but if it is allowed, then they do not feel safe because they know the boundaries really are not there.
We are God’s children. We want and need boundaries. Fortunately for us, God gives us boundaries and He enforces His boundaries. The Ten Commandments were not given because God is a mean God, but because He is a God of love. The Ten Commandments set boundaries to keep us safe. People feel less and less safe in our world today because the Ten Commandments mean less and less and in some places they have been thrown out all together. The more we throw out the Commandments the less safe we will feel. The more we cross over the boundaries the more we suffer, maybe not individually, but as a society as a whole. We may not always suffer the consequences for crossing the boundaries in this life, but we certainly will be held accountable in the life to come.
Our text from Job offers us some wonderful insights into our own lives. First, we are reminded that God is God. God is incomprehensible. This side of heaven, there will always be more that we do not know about God than we do know. God is beyond our imagination and we are glad that He is bigger than our little brains. The most incomprehensibleness about God is the giving of His Son and His Son’s life for us on the cross. Who can understand how our Heavenly Father can love us, His sinful creatures, so much that He would give the life of His one and only Son on the cross, to suffer the most cruelest of deaths for us in our place.
Because our God is so beyond us we might ask ourselves, who are we to question God? Yet, He delights in our coming to Him. Our Lord wants us to come to Him. He wants us to know that He is in charge and that we can come to Him and speak with Him as children speak with their earthly fathers.
We have a wonderful God. We have a God who gives and gives and gives. God gives and we are given to. Our Lord has given us this world in which we live. He has given us life, physical life at our conception. He gives us new life at our baptism. He gives us faith. He gives us forgiveness of sins. He gives us eternal life. He gives, He gives, He gives and we are given to.
Why do good things happen to sinful people? Because we have a great God who loves us so much that He is always looking out for us in order to bring the best out in all situations, even and especially difficult situations. We may not always see this during our times of suffering, but we can know this is true because this is God’s promise to us. And to that we say, to God be the glory. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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