January 23rd

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Job 36-37 and Matthew 15:1-20

I don't know about you, but I found Elihu's speech to be rather confusing. I did, however, find a sermon by John Piper that I found quite enlightening.

In Job: Rebuked by Suffering, Piper says....
The three friends have been wrong—suffering is not the proof of wickedness. And Job had been wrong—his suffering was not the proof of God's arbitrariness. Nor had God become his enemy.

Back in Chapter 33, (33:14-19) Elihu indicated that....
God's purpose for the righteous in these dreams and in this sickness is not to punish but to save—to save from contemplated evil deeds and from pride and ultimately from death. Elihu does not picture God as an angry judge but as a Redeemer, a Savior, a Rescuer, a Doctor. The pain he causes is like the surgeon's knife, not like the executioner's whip....

Elihu explains his view of suffering in one other place, namely, 36:6–15. The helpful thing in these verses is that Elihu makes clear that there is such a thing as a righteous person who still has sin that needs to be revealed and rooted out. To call a person righteous does not mean that the person is sinlessly perfect. There is a "righteous sinner."

This is helpful because God himself called Job a righteous man in 1:1, and Job won his argument on the basis of his reputation as a righteous man. And yet at the end of the book Job repents and despises himself. So Job is righteous (by the testimony of God!) even though he has sin remaining in him. He is not among the wicked.

Elihu looks at these two groups of people, the wicked and the righteous, and he distinguishes the different roles that suffering has in each. We'll start reading at verse 6:

He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives the afflicted their right. He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings upon the throne he sets them for ever, and they are exalted.

Now if he had stopped there, he would have sounded exactly like Eliphaz: the wicked suffer and the righteous prosper. There is a sense in which this is true in the long run. But the question plaguing Job is why the righteous suffer in the short run. So Elihu goes on in verse 8:

And if they [that is, the righteous] are bound in fetters and caught in the cords of affliction [so Elihu admits right away that the righteous are not always with kings on the throne; they do suffer], then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly. He opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity.

In other words the righteous are far from sinlessly perfect. There is much of the old nature left in them, and from time to time this old nature of pride breaks out in actual sinful behavior—as it did with Job when he accused God of being his enemy. This is what Job repents of at the end of the book.....

So the new slant that Elihu gives is that the suffering of the righteous is not the fire of destruction but the fire that refines the gold of their goodness. For the righteous it is not punitive but curative.

So the central lesson for us from the book of Job today is that the children of God—those who trust in God and are led by his Spirit and have their sins covered by the blood of Jesus—may indeed suffer. And when they do, it is not a punishment for sin. Christ has borne the punishment for our sin, and there is no double jeopardy!

The suffering of the children of God is not the firm application of a principle of retributive justice. It is the free application of the principle of sovereign grace. Our Father in heaven has chosen us freely from before the foundation of the world, he regenerated us freely by the work of the Holy Spirit, he justified us freely through the gift of saving faith, and he is now sanctifying us freely by his grace through suffering according to his infinite wisdom.

Suffering is not dispensed willy-nilly among the people of God. It is apportioned to us as individually designed, expert therapy by the loving hand of our great Physician. And its aim is that our faith might be refined, our holiness might be enlarged, our soul might be saved, and our God might be glorified. (emphasis mine)

Sometimes we have sin in our lives and just don't recognize it. We need the refiner's fire to rout it out.

Which actually relates quite well to our Matthew passage (surprise, surprise!).

Jesus talks about how important our hearts are.

Out of my heart, out of the deepest part of my heart, where my true self lies with all it's flaws - out of that heart flow my thoughts, words and deeds.

It's what's in our heart, it's what flows out of that heart, that makes us unclean.

Sometimes the righteous need the Surgeon's knife to reveal the parts of our hearts that still need cleansing by the blood of the Lamb. He is not satisfied with part of it - He wants it all!

Are you willing to give your entire heart to God?

Are you willing for God to do whatever it takes to mold you to more accurately reflect His image to a watching world?

Am I?

Tomorrow's passage: Job 38-40, Matthew 15:21-39