Job 42:1-17
1 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.”
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.
10 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 silver 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.
John 9:1-12
Jesus Heals a Blind Man
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.
11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The Book of Job is the classic book on suffering, and why good people suffer...The questions of pain and suffering have gone on for years and have been written about for thousands of years...I have read where the Book of Job maybe the oldest written book of the Bible...But whether you agree with this that the Book of Job is the oldest book or not, we can agree that writing about pain and suffering has gone on for thousand and thousand of years...We do not understand suffering and Job seems to admit that, when he finally meets and gets to talk with God...We did not understand why God allowed Job's suffering many years ago, any more than we understand why people and Job suffer today...
Over all these millennial of years, what we do understand about suffering is that it makes us think...And when we are confronted with suffering issues, we think about things, deep things, and deep issues -and it seems to me, mostly life issues...It can make us think about the meaning of life...It can make us think about our purpose in life and things of God...Suffering seems to bring out the deep questions of life, years ago, like it did with Job and his friends, and like it does today...I am not saying we would not think differently, if we had no suffering, but the Book of Job makes me think that we do think about God more when our personal experience and our life's experiences are often touched by suffering...
I think C. S. Lewis is right in saying that pain and suffering gets our attention...Lewis said in his book the Problem of Pain that, “We can ignore even pleasure...But pain insists upon being attended to...God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world...No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion...But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment...it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.”...We can ignore some pleasures and desires, but pain does have its way of grabbing us...God can get or attention, and this is one way He does it...He certainly got Job's attention with His megaphone...And it something for us to think about is in the question, "Does suffering make us think of the deep questions of life, that we normally might not ever think about, if we never had any pain or suffering?...And do some, many, or most of the great and deep questions of life and its purpose come from suffering?"...
Jesus is ask by His Disciples a question about a blind man, who was blind from birth...The question is a very interesting one...Because the question is about a newborn baby and its relation to sin...The Disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”...“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him...As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent Me...Night is coming, when no one can work...While I AM in the world, I AM the light of the world.”...The baby, who is now a man did not sin, and neither of the parents caused the man to be blind...Jesus tells us that some of our afflictions and maybe sufferings that we have can show the glory of God...This blind man would be healed because of God...The little baby who was born blind was not the cause of either parent sinning...Jesus tells us that different experiences in our lives, are within the permissive will of God and God allows blindness and suffering...God had allowed the baby's blindness and allowed the evil one to cause Job's suffering...But our sufferings may be made to minister to us and to teach us -and used as a means of bringing glory to God....Whatever comes to us in this life, such as the blindness in a baby or the suffering of Job may be a blessing from God, if it shows His glory...And this is hard for the parent of the little baby to understand, and it was hard for Job to understand...
We want to understand all things, but we do not understand suffering and pain...And maybe some of our deepest questions of life do come out of suffering...Maybe we think more about God when we suffer...And in the end of the Book of Job, God does not answer the question of why we have pain and suffering...He could have answered Job's questions and maybe we might not have understood it...God's Son went through unnatural suffering and died between two criminals...What are we to make of that?...What do you understand from the lesson of the cross?...That for me is hard to understand, how God approached mankind's sinning ways with Jesus' death on the cross...Is Job's suffering, in someway related to Jesus suffering on the cross?...Can the suffering on the cross and the Book of Job have an "understanding relationship" that is hard for us to grasp?...We do not get God's answer on why He allowed Job to suffer or why He allowed the baby to be born blind...God is sovereign over the world, including suffering...Job had no idea how to answer the questions God had for Him...And in the end Job only get these worldly questions from God...But we learn in the end that He is there for Job, the blind man, and for us...