00:00:00:55 – 00:00:25:35
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We push on through the book of job. Here we are in the first chapter. I don’t know if we’ll read our way through this or we’ll kind of go point by point. We’ll see where we go in a minute. But, today the story takes the turn that, you know, is coming in.

00:00:25:35 – 00:00:55:36
Clint Loveall
Job. We have the back story now. We know that God has allowed, the certain Satan to work against job, to work against his blessedness, to cause suffering, to cause harm. And the way that that part of the story is told is, is really well done in that it intensifies. Each thing happens as you’re still reeling from the next thing.

00:00:55:40 – 00:01:22:55
Clint Loveall
They are sequential. Two things happen at the end of At the Hand of Enemies. Two things happen through what you might call, quote unquote natural. Though God is referenced in one of them, which is interesting. And so the way this is told really ramps up the idea of the misfortune that is happening. We’ve been told they meet at the.

00:01:22:58 – 00:01:44:30
Clint Loveall
So we’ll just look at the first one here, that they’re at the brother’s house and then jumping in here. Verse oh 14 A messenger came to job and said the oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabines fell on them and carried them off. And they killed the servants with the edge of the sword.

00:01:44:34 – 00:02:22:00
Clint Loveall
And I alone have escaped to tell you so. The first loss is a loss of property, a loss of herds. We were told in chapter one how much job has now he has less. He has lost some of his wealth. And his servants. And then listen to the transition. Verse 16, while he was still speaking, another one came and said, the fire of God, probably lightning or reference to lightning, fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them.

00:02:22:04 – 00:02:56:15
Clint Loveall
And I alone have escaped to tell you. Now, I think what’s interesting here, Michael, is that enemies raiding the fields in job’s world, this probably is a constant threat. It’s a worry, right? There’s nothing. There’s nothing particularly. Unusual, maybe, about that idea. The idea that on the same day, fire falls from heaven and takes out all the sheep and servants.

00:02:56:15 – 00:03:24:25
Clint Loveall
So, so it could be that what this story is doing is presenting job where an earthly thing happened and a heavenly thing happened in conjunction, both to the same end of taking his property, his wealth, that that he’s been attacked, so to speak, on two fronts here. And and though we don’t know that for sure, I think that may be in play.

00:03:24:30 – 00:03:49:03
Michael Gewecke
It’s worth noting here as well, that there is a connection to the narrative that came before. I think it’s intentional. What you see here is the context of the gathering of these children. And but you’ve got to remember that we literally had in the text all the way back in verse five, that when the feast days had run their course, Joel would send and sanctify them.

00:03:49:03 – 00:04:36:01
Michael Gewecke
He’d rise early. He’d offer burnt offerings. So notice what we have at the beginning here. Verse 13, on the day where they are drinking wine together, the siblings, the very day that we would be right to assume, based upon what’s been said in the narrative, that job, it’s probably already, doing something to atone for, to to cover over any mistakes on the very same day you have first, the loss of property and by the way, servants, which has an interesting pattern throughout this, entire series of misfortunes, you have this property and then, you keep coming, then you lose not just to the physical enemy, but you actually lose to nature itself.

00:04:36:01 – 00:05:07:55
Michael Gewecke
An act of God, as we even still say today, you that you have these two misfortunes rolling down really quickly. It’s interesting because in telling this story this way. It’s fascinating because the lie is both included and also not included. Like, why? Well, because ultimately the Sabines are the kind of people who are going to come to steal your stuff, right?

00:05:08:00 – 00:05:26:56
Michael Gewecke
But when both of them follow each other and we’ve got more to go here today, you start having put in the back of your mind. If you are looking from job’s perspective, why, why, how is this whole happening in one day, the misfortune that you could have told this story where all of it happened at one time, right?

00:05:26:56 – 00:05:41:15
Michael Gewecke
The fire fell and the attack came. But there’s a way in which these waves and that while he’s still speaking, just makes it abundantly clear that it’s it’s one punch after the other, which raises, I think, a much larger why question.

00:05:41:18 – 00:05:52:22
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And and that continues that pattern. Verse 17, while he was still speaking it almost you get the image like the servants are just lined up waiting to tell him one horrible thing.

00:05:52:31 – 00:05:52:57
Michael Gewecke
Exactly.

00:05:52:57 – 00:06:18:51
Clint Loveall
After another. Right? While he was still speaking, another came and said, The Chaldeans formed three columns and made a raid on the camels, and carried them off and killed the servants with the edge of the sword. And I alone have escaped to tell you, while he was still speaking, another came and said, your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their elders brother’s house.

00:06:18:55 – 00:06:55:40
Clint Loveall
Suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you so. This is the pinnacle, obviously, of job’s losses that day. Because as important as. Wealth and camels and donkeys and such would be here we have seven children gone, to a great wind, which again, is this a force of nature?

00:06:55:42 – 00:07:34:57
Clint Loveall
Is this a thing that happens? The likelihood seems to have grown increasingly unlikely, even as the effect has grown increasingly more devastating. And so now job stands in that place of complete loss. The worst news is the last news. The sort of final straw. And again, I alone have escaped to tell you all the even so great is the destruction that even in each instance, there’s only one bearer of the tale.

00:07:35:02 – 00:07:38:31
Clint Loveall

00:07:38:36 – 00:08:01:35
Clint Loveall
The story is trying to paint for us a picture of total devastation. And I don’t know that it could have done it much better. We we can be troubled by these details, and and it’s okay. Job certainly is in the book is to some extent. But in setting this up, the book has delivered us where it wants us to be.

00:08:01:44 – 00:08:29:42
Michael Gewecke
Tell me if you disagree with this, Clint. What I think is interesting is if you read from verse 13 without what preceded it, and it’s hard for us to get our mind around that. But if you just started here in verse 13, I think we can relate to a story like this. Maybe not that exact, you know, people writing the house and the house falling down, but but we have all experienced either ourselves or we have seen in others misfortune upon misfortune.

00:08:29:42 – 00:09:03:28
Michael Gewecke
And it does feel like it cascades in. What’s that saying? When it rains, it pours. I mean, there’s this sense that we understand that sometimes inexplicably horrible things happen in immediate succession. What’s interesting about jobs telling the story is we got the behind the scenes beforehand, which really does has a way of changing our perception as a reader, because we’ve been led into something that there’s no reason the job doesn’t know what we know.

00:09:03:39 – 00:09:35:34
Michael Gewecke
Job’s not thinking about some conversation between God and the. The Satan job is just simply hearing this report, being gobsmacked time and then time and then time and time again. And each one of those times, he’s facing the reality of loss. And I think what’s really interesting in the way that that this is framed is you get an opportunity to see a person who is now going to, knowingly be put to the test.

00:09:35:34 – 00:10:02:04
Michael Gewecke
In other words, what the question that we, the reader, have, what is Joe going to do after such total devastation? And that’s exactly where the author had set us up in the previous study, where the question what job is job going to curse God when the situation turns? Well, now we’ll have to wonder. The situation has turned its land at home, literally home.

00:10:02:09 – 00:10:08:17
Michael Gewecke
And so because of that, the question is going to be, what is job’s response?

00:10:08:22 – 00:10:46:30
Clint Loveall
We we called the theological wrestling with the problem of suffering. Theodicy. And theodicy is a religious problem. The suffering is of significance because of what we know of job, that he’s righteous and that the Lord is pleased with him. And you put that in conversation with his suffering. That’s what creates the problem, right? An atheist does not have to wrestle with theodicy because there’s no belief in anything.

00:10:46:30 – 00:11:15:34
Clint Loveall
Things just happen. But the idea of faith complicates the idea of suffering. And again, it this the way that this story is structured has, I think, really brought that tension to the forefront. If if all you have is the faith, it’s a good story. If all you have is the suffering, it’s a tolerable story when you put them together.

00:11:15:39 – 00:11:50:52
Clint Loveall
It’s a very challenging, difficult story. I, I think that’s on purpose. Let’s do look at this last part, though. Job’s response, verse 20. Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground and worshiped. This, I think, is the surprising word at the end of the sentence. We can imagine in an act of grief, tearing his robe is a cultural movement of that day in time shaved his head.

00:11:50:52 – 00:12:20:03
Clint Loveall
The same would be true. Fall on the ground, of course, and worshiped. Reached out to God and. We might think of that as prayed. We might think of that as lamentation. But he turns himself toward God. That’s essentially the act of worship here. And then verse 21, he said, naked, I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.

00:12:20:07 – 00:12:44:06
Clint Loveall
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now a couple of things I think, that are important here. The first is this idea God doesn’t owe me anything. I was born naked, I return naked. In other words, I had nothing when I came into this world. And if I go out with nothing, the Lord gave and the Lord take away.

00:12:44:16 – 00:13:29:48
Clint Loveall
Now I think what’s important about that second half of the verse is. In a way that might make us uncomfortable. This book is serious about those words the Lord took away. In other words, even at this outset, Jobe understands that the random happenings of life are not outside of the super. The oversight and supervision of Almighty God. Jobe attributes to God both the good and the bad in his life, which is a tremendous act of faith for anybody, particularly an almost unimaginable from job’s current situation.

00:13:29:52 – 00:13:54:43
Clint Loveall
And finally, because he can do that, he finally voices this blessed be the name of the Lord. I think we read that in a condensed fashion. Certainly no one should approach someone in the midst of deep suffering and try to get them to wear a job, and I this is a condensed story looking at the landmarks of suffering.

00:13:54:43 – 00:14:18:46
Clint Loveall
I don’t think it’s a timeline. I don’t think it’s prescriptive. But Jobe does move to that place where he says, blessed be the name of the Lord. And then we get told in the last verse here in all of this, Jobe did not sin or charged God with wrongdoing, which is essentially what we went into this story seeking to find out.

00:14:18:46 – 00:14:23:40
Clint Loveall
Or certainly at least that was the question hanging over the text.

00:14:23:45 – 00:14:43:57
Michael Gewecke
So commentator points out in verse 21 here, and I’m sure you know that this happens the the ordering of the words in the original language. It’s different by nature of that language. And when you translate something into a different language for it to make sense, you, you have to sort of reconstitute them. But end of verse 21, blessed be the name of the Lord.

00:14:43:57 – 00:15:20:25
Michael Gewecke
Blessed is the last word in that sentence in the original language. So imagine the last word of the speech of job being blessed. That direct contradiction of what the accuser said would be the case. You’ll curse you to your face. God was the accusation. And so the idea that the last word might actually be blessed, the idea that there might be worship combined with these demonstrations of grief, the fact that at the end of the day, the book of Job says, verse 22, job did not sin or charged God with wrongdoing.

00:15:20:28 – 00:15:47:33
Michael Gewecke
I claim that that’s about as direct of an affirmation of a fact as what you’re going to get from the Bible, right? So you’re reading a narrative and you’re wondering, well, what’s the upshot? The upshot is when Jobe responded, he did not sin. When job responded, he did not charge God with wrongdoing in the thing that that is the kind of clarity that generally, I think we would love to have in Scripture.

00:15:47:33 – 00:16:16:48
Michael Gewecke
And in this case, maybe it’s all the more troubling because of what’s going to continue to happen. I think this is a kind of waterfall, cascading waterfall of destruction, pain and grief. And unfortunately, we’ve not left the the waterfall yet. There’s more that come. And yet at this stage, we see that Jobe has stood firm and that the character of Jobe remains tested and found true.

00:16:16:53 – 00:16:24:31
Michael Gewecke
Sound, accurate and, and maybe in a way that makes the story all the more disturbing.

00:16:24:36 – 00:17:19:48
Clint Loveall
There’s a profound relationship, a difficult relationship found here between the Lord takes away and Jobe did not charge the Lord with wrongdoing. In other words, even if Jobe is able to say these things happen at the hand of God, he maintains that God isn’t wrong in doing them, and that, again, that serves the purpose of this book. I wouldn’t argue that that’s great theology for most of us, but if you’re going to write a the the pinnacle biblical story of the relationship between faith and suffering, you have to lay that on the table.

00:17:19:48 – 00:18:03:49
Clint Loveall
And again, in some very, some very deep ways, this is setting the stage or building the foundation of what’s going to come down the road. But, that that is a this is a hard thing for Jobe to both. On one hand, almost give God’s sovereignty credit for all the things that happen in life, the good and the bad, and to trust God’s innocence and not charge God of wrongdoing.

00:18:03:54 – 00:18:11:42
Clint Loveall
Most of us are unable to do both of those things simultaneously. And and here it looks like Jobe does.

00:18:11:47 – 00:18:33:57
Michael Gewecke
So one thing I think that’s really interesting is how this the way it’s told naked. I came from my mother’s womb. Naked. Shall I return and notice that this is framed in the story of life and death, birth to death. There’s a cosmic Jobe immediately pulls back to a cosmic view of the whole story. And to say, you know that this story is bigger than me.

00:18:34:08 – 00:19:01:46
Michael Gewecke
It’s other than me. I understand that I’m just a speck in time. So in a way, that relative size is the suffering. In another way, it presents God as other, and it presents God is as outside the circle. It in many ways it’s jobe reflecting that thing that there can be a conversation he’s not aware of. And what I think really fascinating that Clint is, God’s going to get to have a word.

00:19:01:51 – 00:19:31:24
Michael Gewecke
He got the cosmic scope of this whole thing, which is only going to reinforce that otherness, that that separation, between our life and death and between the God who oversees it all. I’m not sure that that’s intended to comfort us. I think that would be the wrong assumption that you bring to the book. Maybe there’s comfort in it, but I think instead it provides for us a really clear view that there are some moments of trouble that give us a certain kind of clarity.

00:19:31:24 – 00:19:45:45
Michael Gewecke
Right? Wrong. Hard. Easy. Jobe sees it, says something clear here, which, by the way, as he doesn’t charge God with wrongdoing, right or wrong, he’s also found himself to have not done wrong in this situation.

00:19:45:50 – 00:20:22:59
Clint Loveall
He it is sometimes hard to celebrate the successes that we see in the book of Job, because they happen with such a troubling backdrop. And that is certainly the case where we see that in the span of a few minutes, or at least as we read it within the span of a short period, Jobe finds out that he’s lost his wealth, his estate, his field is flocks, and ultimately his family.

00:20:23:04 – 00:20:55:10
Clint Loveall
And yet God’s assessment of job is right. God said Jobe is righteous. He fears God and does what’s right. And Satan said, well, he won’t if suffering comes into his life. And and God has proven right and Jobe has proven his faith. And again, amidst all the troubling questions that this kind of story raises it, it seems like faint praise.

00:20:55:15 – 00:21:29:11
Clint Loveall
But. But Jobe has prevailed. He has succeeded. He faced these unimaginable trials, and yet ends with blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all this he did not sin or charged God with wrongdoing. He did not curse God, which is the charge that the Satan made or the prediction that he made. So, it doesn’t feel very good.

00:21:29:11 – 00:21:45:40
Clint Loveall
It’s a little bit like, oh yeah, good for Jobe, I guess, but it there are a few moments where we get to see a profound faith, an amazing faith. But it feels so heavy that it’s a little hard to recognize it.

00:21:45:45 – 00:22:03:36
Michael Gewecke
Where we’ve gone down, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, and we’ll keep going down in that story. So hope you’ll join us for it. Certainly. There’s a lot more to glean from a book full of wisdom and some twists and turns, so I hope you’ll join us for that. Subscribe so you don’t miss studies like this one.

00:22:03:46 – 00:22:08:54
Michael Gewecke
Like this video because it helps others find it in their own studies. And friends, we will see you tomorrow.

00:22:08:56 – 00:22:09:28
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody!