SERIES: The Book of Job
Epilogue to the Book of Job
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note: This sermon was never finished and never preached, and thus there is no audio. I had been working ahead, planning to preach this passage on September 26, but the previous Monday I was involved in a very serious car accident with a horse. I didn’t preach again until October 17, when I returned to the Book of Job for a final message. Pastor Brad Harper preached on chapter 42 in my place on September 26.
Introduction: I find it significant that there even exists an Epilogue to the Book of Job. Liberal scholars have enjoyed poking fun at the Pollyanna ending in which the good guy wins, the bad guys lose, and everyone lives happily ever after. Some have even suggested that the Epilogue contradicts the purpose of the entire rest of the book, namely, to show that some men worship God irrespective of reward and self-interest.
But there’s something hollow about these complaints, for Job has passed the test of his faith without ever cursing God, as Satan had claimed he would. Since the trial has been concluded, and since the form of the trial was the sufferings of Job, those sufferings must now cease. In a sense the restoration of Job’s prosperity is not so much a reward for his piety as it is the indication that the trial is over and the verdict is “Not guilty.” Any judge who left a defendant to languish in prison after he had been acquitted would rightly be condemned as iniquitous.
The simple fact is, whether the critics like it or not, that God does reward His faithful servants. Patient endurance of affliction does lead to wisdom, intimate fellowship, and ultimate happiness. And that final happiness does not always have to await eternity. God very often blesses His people in this life. And this is what He does for Job.
Our first point today is largely review and summary of the conclusion of last Sunday’s message. It helps set the stage for today’s text, beginning in 42:7.
The transformation of Job’s character (1-6)
After listening to God’s brilliant and profound character sketches of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, Job responds in 42:1-6:
Then Job replied to the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
We see here at least three transformations that have taken place in Job’s character. The first is the transformation …
From easy believism to costly faith. What do we mean by “easy believism?” It is belief that entails little or no sacrifice, that costs nothing, and that demands little. There are a great many professing Christians in our own country who suffer from this disease. We have all we need and much that we don’t need. We do not pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” because we know where our bread is coming from for the foreseeable future. We tend to “add God on” to our plans rather like a cherry on top of a Root Beer Float. Or we drag Him along as a divine trump card in case we run into trouble.
But real, living faith is costly. It demands sacrifice. It demands works, for faith without works is dead (not tired, not listless, not sick, but dead). It’s only when trials come, when sorrow strikes, when poverty threatens, that faith is often shown to be real, and not just “easy believism.” What’s the solution, then? Should we eagerly long for testing and trials? Are we supposed to be spiritual masochists in search of a way to prove that our faith is real? No, far better that we right now begin to discipline ourselves unto godliness, practice sacrificial giving, exercise good works consistently, and generally demonstrate that our faith can withstand the test of prosperity. It may be that God will not then have to apply to us the test of adversity.
Job’s faith before the trials, it must be noted, can be called “easy believism” only in comparison to his faith after the trials. In comparison to many of us, I suspect, his faith was very strong even before his trials. But there is no question that the trials strengthened his faith as fire strengthens clay.
Job’s second character transformation is …
From proud criticism to humble acceptance. One normally does not think of Job as a paradigm of pride. And yet what else could be responsible for his audacity to challenge God’s justice and to demand an audience with Him? It’s not until God speaks, and by means of reference to cosmology, astronomy, meteorology, biology, and zoology, shows Job how utterly insignificant he is in the total scheme of things, that Job humbly accepts God’s will as the perfect solution for his life.
The truth is still valid that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled….” (Matthew 23:12) The higher we climb in our own estimation, the farther we must fall when God brings us to our senses. Job reaches the stage of humble acceptance here at the conclusion of his trial.
And the third transformation is …
From knowing about God to knowing God. Job knew a lot about God second-hand. This he acknowledges when he says, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear.” As J. I. Packer has reminded us in his book, Knowing God, there are a great many ways today to accumulate a second-hand knowledge of God: there are books, sermons, tapes, seminars, Bible studies, films, videotapes, blogs, etc. But one can employ all these methods and still hardly know God at all. It’s not until we have learned the privilege of personal communication with God, through earnest prayer, personal Bible study, and consistent obedience, that we can in any serious vein claim to know God. It was not until after his personal communication with God that Job could exclaim, “Now my eyes have seen you.”
It is only after these character transformations take place that God turns His attention from Job to Job’s friends. But even this is done with the fundamental purpose in mind of …
The vindication of Job’s integrity (7-9)
Back in chapter 13 Job had asked of his three counselors, “Will it be well when He examines you?” The answer to that question is now given in verses 7-9:
7 After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.
The rebuke of Eliphaz and his colleagues. Eliphaz is, I suspect, sitting all the time listening to God’s speech and muttering little “amens” and offering his 2 cents worth, “Give it to him, Lord. Let him have it.” Suddenly the Lord turns to him, perhaps because he is the eldest of the three counselors, and expresses His wrath toward all of them. Why Elihu is not included I do not know, and no one else seems to have a very satisfactory explanation either.
The rebuke is delivered “because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.” While this statement presents us with some difficulties, especially in view of the implied, as well as expressed, criticism of Job throughout God’s speech, I believe we should at least be satisfied to understand that in God’s estimation Job clearly had the better of the debate. Job has been critical of God; he has insinuated that God lacked compassion; and he has implied that God was arbitrary. But he has never boxed God in or limited His sovereignty by saying that “God can only act this way,” as they have done!
Mark it well: Satan has no more dangerous tools than those, who under the guise of piety, and in the name of religious orthodoxy, offer false comfort or give untrue impressions of God. Far better to be silent in the presence of suffering than to speak falsehood against the God who allows it!
The requirement of both a sacrifice and an intercessor. “So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” The extensiveness of the sacrifice indicates the gravity of the error. The need for them to go to Job for intercession indicates a complete reversal of roles. In the course of their bitter speeches against Job, not one of them even hinted that they, not Job, might be the object of God’s wrath and in need of His grace. Now they discover, in a delightful irony, that unless they can secure the intercession of Job, they cannot escape the divine displeasure themselves.
I cannot leave this verse without noting the remarkable parallel that can be seen in the sacrificial atonement and high priestly intercession of Jesus Christ. God’s requirement for men to escape divine judgment is an immeasurable sacrifice—that of His one and only Son. And the only mediator, the only intercessor, the only advocate who can plead our case before the Father is the very One whom we have wronged. God says of Him, as He said of Job, “For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly.”
Our acceptance by God the Father is totally dependent upon the Father’s acceptance of the Son’s sacrifice. “He is the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world .” (1 John 2:2) Every human being, without distinction, has available to him the possibility of pardon of sins through the death of Christ.
The result of obedience on their part and Job’s. The requirements are met. Verse 9 reads, “So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.” The three counselors obeyed. Job agreed to intercede for them. And God accepted Job as a propitiation (a satisfaction) of His wrath toward them.
To me it is no small thing that Job readily agreed to pray for his three “friends,” so-called. After all, at a time when he desperately needed comfort, they merely maligned him. When he needed encouragement, they denounced him. Zophar had said that God was not giving Job even half the trouble he deserved. Yet, when they asked him to intercede for them, he did not hesitate. While outwardly a beggar, he acted like a prince. No wonder God called him, “my servant” four times in these two verses. And I have little doubt that Zophar is now grateful that God isn’t giving him half of what he deserves.
I find it significant, too, that the Lord says nothing to Job of deliverance for himself, but He does say He would accept him as he prayed for his accusers. Job must therefore put aside all thought of his present condition and cooperate with the known will of God. He must not wait for outward and manifest deliverance from his sorrows, but must cease concern for himself, and his own affairs, and attend to the needs of his friends. And as he does so, God responds, as we see in the third and final portion of our text today.
The restoration of Job’s prosperity, and then some. (10-17)
“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silve] and a gold ring.
12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.”
The timing of Job’s restoration. “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.” The restoration of Job came after he had prayed for his friends, not after he repented. His readiness to intercede on their behalf demonstrates his willingness to forgive them and thus shows again the depth of his godly character. The value of intercessory prayer is often recognized in the Bible—Abraham for Sodom, Moses for the Children of Israel, Elijah for the widow’s son, Christ in Gethsemane and again on the cross—but never so clearly as here in regard to its value for the intercessor himself.
I think some of us rob ourselves of a great outpouring of God’s blessing through a spirit of unforgiveness and a refusal to intercede for those we feel have wronged us. And don’t kid yourself—if you pray for your enemy but refuse to be civil to him, your prayers aren’t getting past the ceiling.
We see secondly,…
The degree of God’s blessing. God is no parsimonious miser dispensing His blessings with just enough frequency to keep up the hopes of the faithful. When He decides to bless someone, they’d best be sitting down. Verse 10 says, “The Lord gave him twice as much as he had before.” And, as you will recall, what he originally had was considerable.
One difficulty we face is that we don’t always recognize God’s blessings because they aren’t always given as abruptly as in the case of Job. But ask yourself, “compared with where I was 10 or 20 years ago, have I been the recipient of God’s bountiful blessings or not?” And lest we have any doubt whether God has treated Job properly, the Epilogue speaks of …
The multiple areas of God’s blessing: First, there is
1. The revival of old friendships (11). “All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.” Why was the revival of these old friendship necessary? Turn back to chapter 19 and we’ll find out. Beginning in verse 13 Job complains about God:
“He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My kinsmen have gone away; my friends have forgotten me. My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger; they look upon me as an alien. I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me. All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me.”
Some of you have felt this estrangement from friends and relatives at the time of a difficult trial. Perhaps you’ve suffered a divorce. And suddenly you sense some people pulling back from you. You begin to pick up critical innuendos in people’s speech and find people not inviting you over so frequently as they once did. Now whether these observations are real or imaginary (and there are probably plenty of both), the feelings of estrangement are very real. And sometimes it seems like a very long time before one can break through that invisible barrier to fellowship. When it happens, though, there is a blessed revival of old friendships.
The tragedy is, of course, that friends and family and Christian brothers and sisters don’t always stick by us when we’re going through the dark valley. Sometimes they respond as Job’s friends and relatives. If and when you find friends who will hang tough with you through thick and thin, by all means stick with them. They’re a rare species. At the same time, though, ask yourself what kind of a friend you have been.
Back to Job, I wonder if you noticed that these friends and relatives are consoling and comforting Job. When everything is finally set right, Job still feels the hurt of his losses and needs human compassion, especially regarding the ten children he has lost. The significance of their gifts of money and jewelry is not entirely clear, though evidently such gifts were customary for the culture of that day. Besides the revival of old friendships there is …
2. Recovery of great possessions. His house is restored, as is clear from verse 11. His 7,000 sheep become 14,000, 3,000 camels become 6,000, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 female donkeys become 1,000 each. Early in the book Job had said, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Now the reverse is seen to be true as well: the Lord takes away, but the Lord also gives.
3. Replacement of a large family. One can’t really replace a lost child, but at least God gives Job ten more children. Why not 20, if he’s increasing all that Job lost twofold? Could it be because Job hadn’t really lost his children? After all, he himself has expressed his belief that after his skin is destroyed, yet from his flesh he will see God. If such a hope in resurrection is his personal possession, then he undoubtedly has the same hope for his children.
While Job fathers 7 sons and 3 daughters, nothing further is said of his sons, but several facts are given regarding his daughters: their names, their beauty, which was extraordinary, and their inheritance. Perhaps the reason the inheritance is mentioned is that it was rare indeed for daughters to be included in the family inheritance. Finally, …
4. Restoration to a full life. “After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years.” Tradition claims Job was 70 when the trials began. If so, God gave him twice as many years afterward, and he died at the ripe old age of 210, not before, however, he has seen four generations of his progeny. Since Job lives to such a great age, it is obvious he also recovered his health, though this is not specifically mentioned. When he finally dies, he is an old man and full of days, a term which signifies a rich and fulfilling life.
Let me ask you a question. Was Job’s last 100 years or so better because of what God put him through, or not? Out of 210 years there were 4-6 months of tragedy plus undoubtedly a lengthy time of sorrowful memories. Was there compensation? Spiritually, as well as materially? If you had your choice, would you prefer to live 80 years with an experience like Job’s somewhere in the middle, or 55 years of relative ease knowing God second-hand?
Conclusion: In conclusion I want us to turn to a passage in the NT which we made reference to four months ago when we began our study of Job. It is the only mention of Job in the entire NT, but it is very instructive: James 4:11: “As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.”
The lesson James wants us to carry away from the book of Job is not primarily about Job but about God. Yes, Job was a man of great endurance, and that’s an essential part of the story. But the fundamental truth above all other truths is that the outcome proves that God is not only sovereign; He is also full of compassion and mercy.
He is the same today. And as in the days of Job, it is in our trials and sufferings that we most readily come to know Him as full of compassion and merciful. He is not simply a cosmic Santa Claus, dispensing gifts to good children and playing tricks on the bad. He is good to all.
But sometimes He demonstrates His goodness by sending prosperity. Other times He demonstrates His goodness by sending adversity. Always He demonstrates it through His sovereignty. If He were predictable or responsible to us, He would cease to be God.
DATE: September 26, 1993
Tags:
Easy believism
Faith
Knowing God
Intercessor
Restoration