Title:
The Trial’s End
Text: Job
42: 5-17
Date:
January 28, 2018
Place:
SGBC, New Jersey
Friday,
we visited Chloe soon after her surgery in the hospital. I looked at this little 6 year old girl, groggy
from the anesthesia, lay there in the bed so sick with Leukemia. I saw a young
mother and father with hurt in their eyes who would gladly take their child’s
place if they could. On the drive home, I asked God to give me a message for
them and for us.
I have
known a number of believers who have suffered very heavy trials who have told
me that they would not change a thing about their trial. Not because there was
anything easy or pleasant about the trial.
But because after the trial God taught them things and blessed them in
ways that they could not have known apart from the trial.
Proposition:
When God sends his child a trial, though it is bitter to go through, in the end
God always accomplishes his purpose of blessing and edifying his child.
A trial
is a form of captivity. Verse 10
says “And the LORD turned the captivity
of Job.” The LORD released him
from the captivity of affliction/sorrow and made him rejoice. God gave the children of Israel a great trial of captivity under the Babylonians for
70 long years. But even as they suffered that trial, God sent Jeremiah to assure
them:
Jeremiah 29: 10:
Thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will
visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to
this place. 11: For I know the
thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of
evil, to give you an expected end. 12: Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall
go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13: And ye shall seek me, and
find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 14: And I will be
found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will
gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven
you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused
you to be carried away captive.
Subject:
The Trial’s End
Divisions:
I want to show you three things that God did for Job at his trial’s end which
God does for his child at the end of our trials.
1) One, God
grew Job in the knowledge of Christ—Job
42: 5: I have heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
2) Two, as
God grew him in the knowledge of Christ, God grew Job in the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ—Job 42: 7: And it was so, that after
the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the
Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye
have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.
8: Therefore take unto you now
seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for
yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him
will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have
not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. 9: So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad
the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the
LORD commanded them: the LORD also accepted Job.
3) Three,
after the trial ended, God blessed Job with more than he had from the beginning—Job 42: 10:…also the LORD gave Job twice
as much as he had before. 11: Then
came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that
had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house:
and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had
brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an
earring of gold. 12: So the LORD
blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen
thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a
thousand she asses. 13: He had
also seven sons and three daughters. 14:
And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia;
and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch. 15: And in all the land were no women found so fair as the
daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. 16: After this lived Job an hundred
and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even four
generations. 17: So Job died, being
old and full of days.
I hope
God will be pleased to use this to comfort Ravi and Debbie, their family and
each of us here and all his people who are suffering trials.
GROWN IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
Job 42: 5: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine
eye seeth thee. 6: Wherefore I
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
At the
trials end, God grows his child in the knowledge of Christ.
The first
hour God gives his child faith to behold Christ this is where he brings us—“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the
ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.”
2 Peter 1:3: According as his divine power hath given
unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the
knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
And likewise,
at the end of the trial when God grows us in the knowledge of Christ this is
where God brings us—“I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.”
For a
believer, we are made to behold our Redeemer so clearly that we feel as if before,
we had only “heard of thee but now mine
eye seeth thee.” I’ve told you, at the end of more than one trial, God made
me behold Christ so that I thought it was the first day I ever truly believed.
One of
the best ways to keep us turned from our will, our wisdom and our works is by the
trial in which God makes us know first-hand that we are helpless to save
ourselves. When you see your child
suffer, you would gladly take their place if you could. But in a trial like this God makes the
doctrine of our total depravity so very real to a believer. We experience
first-hand how helpless our will and works are to save. As a believer, Paul
said,
Romans 7:18…for to will is present with me; but how to
perform that which is good I find not.
But the Spirit
of God makes us behold our Everlasting Father who beheld his elect child upon
our sick-bed. Yet, he both willed and had power to perform the work to save all
his sick children.
Psalm 14: 2:
The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were
any that did understand, and seek God. 3: They are all gone aside, they are all together become
filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Isaiah 63: 5: And I looked, and there was none to
help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own
arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
We look
and are helpless. He looked and came and took not only our sickness but our
very sin; not only the sin of one of his sick children but the sin of every
elect child given to him from eternity—“for
the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences
unto justification.” (Rom 5: 16)
Then being
made sin he bore his own just fury. Thereby his
own fury upheld him—by his own blood he upheld his own law and justice
dying the just for the unjust—making each of his children the righteousness of
God in him. So he says of himself, “therefore
mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.”
In the
trial, when God gives us light to behold Christ on the cross bearing that
infinite pain and sorrow for us then we are brought to cry—“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye
seeth thee.”
Zechariah 12: 10: I will pour upon the house of David,
and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications:
and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for
him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness
for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
And that
look is our double cure because not only are we made to know more assuredly that
Christ is all our Salvation, we also are made to know more assuredly the
sinfulness of our flesh, so that we also cry out, “Wherefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Oh,
brethren, my heart breaks to see you suffer in trials. But this gracious work
our Lord works through trials is what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “our light affliction, which is but for a
moment, worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen:
for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen
are eternal.” (2 Cor 4: 17-18)
GROWTH IN THE GRACE OF CHRIST
Job 42: 7: And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these
words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled
against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the
thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. 8: Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go
to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant
Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after
your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is
right, like my servant Job.
At the
trials end, God also grows his child in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We see in
verse 7 that if we need to be defended in the trial, God will vindicate his
child. When God tries you using friends who treat you with contempt, never vindicate
yourself. Job put his hand to the ark by vindicating himself to his friends and
made a mess of things. Wait on the Lord
even as Christ waited on God the Father!
Isaiah 50: 6…I hid not my face from shame and spitting. 7:
For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore
have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 8: He
is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together:
who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. 9: Behold, the Lord GOD will
help me;
So Christ
will vindicate us before all our adversaries.
Romans 8: 33:
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that
justifieth. 34: Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
But our
main point here is that we see that God grew Job in the grace of Christ. We see
it in the way God made Job do for these men what Christ did for him. God made
these friends, who needed atonement for their sins, come to Job that he might
represent them to God—“Therefore take
unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer
up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for
him will I accept: lest I deal with you after
your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.”
They had sinned.
They needed forgiveness with God. So God told them to bring seven bullocks and seven rams—the number
of perfection. Blood had to be shed to remit their sins, a type of Christ—“By his one offering [Christ] hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified.”
But God
told them to go to Job and Job would offer their offering to God for them and
make intercession for them. This is what Christ did for Job and for all his
people. We sinned against Christ. Then by God’s grace, God brings us to the
very one sinned against. We come to Christ against whom we sinned and Christ is
the Mediator between God the Father and we who sinned against him; Christ offered
himself to God in behalf of his people who sinned against him; Christ is the
Intercessor who is our Advocate with the Father on our behalf.
Twice,
God gives Job high honor, calling him my servant. Christ the GodMan took the
form of a servant. Christ is the Righteous Servant of God whom God will accept.
God told them they had to come to Job—“For
him will I accept: lest I deal with you after
your folly.” He told them this because they were not right as God’s
servant Job. Sinners must come to God through faith in Christ because God will
accept Christ, else God will deal with us after our sin. It is because we are
not righteous in ourselves, only Christ is the Righteousness of his people.
Then in
verse 9 we see they “did according as the
LORD commanded.” And Job interceded for them and “the LORD also accepted Job.”
Do you see how through this trial, God grew Job in the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ? For these sinners who
treated Job with so much contempt, God made Job willing to show them grace. It
is because God grew Job making him behold the grace of Christ toward him. Job
was made to show them grace though they had sinned against him just as Christ
showed him grace though Job was an enemy toward Christ. God made Job willing to
do for his adversaries what Christ did for him, though he treated Christ with contempt.
Job interceded with God on behalf of men who had treated him as an enemy.
Brethren
that is the grace of our Lord Jesus toward his people. He laid down his life
and interceded for his people who hated him and treated him with contempt.
2 Corinthians 8:9: For ye know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that
ye through his poverty might be rich. [who are we talking about when it says
Christ did this for your sakes?]
Colossians 1: 21:
And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled 22 In the body of his flesh through death, to
present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
In Job,
we see a believer who God grew in the grace of Christ. This is not that phony self-righteous work
that religion calls progressive sanctification. When we are born of God, our
inner man is recreated in the image of God, conformed to the image of Christ
and is holy. We never become more holy. But God grows our new man in the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ making us more willing to lay down our lives for one
another, even for our enemies. The
apostle Peter called this work of our Lord in the new man “grow[ing] in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
(2 Pet 3: 18) As God grows us in the knowledge of Christ, God grows us in the
grace of Christ making us more willing to love one another, laying down our
lives for one another, interceding for one another as Christ did for us.
BLESSED WITH MORE THAN BEFORE
Job 42: 10: And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for
his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11: Then came there unto him all his
brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance
before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted
him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave
him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. 12: So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his
beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand
yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. 13:
He had also seven sons and three daughters. 14: And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of
the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch. 15: And in all the land were no women
found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them
inheritance among their brethren. 16:
After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his
sons’ sons, even four generations. 17: So Job died, being old and full of days.
At the
trials end, we find that not only has God not hurt us, God has blessed us with
more than we had before.
One, “the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when
he prayed for his friends.” The LORD turned Job’s captivity turning his sorrow
and affliction into joy in Christ. God gave him joy by making him grow in the
knowledge of Christ and by making him grow in the grace of Christ more than
ever before.
Get this.
Where did God do this? God did this in the public worship of God—when he came to offer the sacrifices and
pray for his friends. Believer, before, during and after the trial never
cease to assemble to publicly worship the Lord. It is here that Christ has promised
to meet with us and it through his gospel, that he will sanctify the trial to
us, teach us Christ and turn our captivity and affliction into joy. I pray he
is doing that for someone today so you can bear witness that it is true.
Two, God
gave Job more than he had before. Christ gave up everything on the cross. But
God raised him and gave him more as the glorified GodMan. Christ has been seeing his sons and his sons
sons born again and brought to him in glory for over two thousand years since
the cross. Everything has been given to
our glorious Head by our faithful Father.
And we are joint-heirs in Christ.
And as
God makes us behold Christ and grow in his grace, God gives us more than we had
before. This is why I have heard so
many believers who have suffered grievous trials say they would not change one
thing about it.
Robert Hawker said, “The deepest afflictions are but the
seed-time of a joyful harvest.”
This is
all true because,
Romans 8: 28: And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
purpose.
Every
event in our lives is being worked together by our faithful heavenly Father for
the good of each of his children according to his purpose. So we endure the
trial.
James 5: 11: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye
have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the
Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
To every
believer who is suffering a trial, on the word of our God which I have proven
by experience, I comfort you with this: after this trial, it shall be said of
you what was said of Job, “the
LORD blessed the latter end…more than his beginning.”
Amen!