Graceless Words for a Grieving Man │ Msg 9/22

0:01 It's funny how you sometimes get a song on your mind. It happened to me last Thursday afternoon and on into Friday morning. I was sitting in my study and I kept going over this old spiritual that used to be sung in a choir years ago in the deep south. Everybody's talking about heaven ain't going there Heaven, remember that? Heaven, go ahead Everybody's talking about heaven ain't going there Heaven, heaven Now, you know, it's an amazing song. Not that the words are that significant. It's just everybody smiles when they sing it, and they're saying they ain't going to heaven. And I thought that's a lot like grace. Everybody's talking about grace.

0:54 Ain't going there either. Everybody's talking about grace. We wouldn't know it if we met it face on. Most people aren't even ready for it when it's presented to them. Not long ago, a student from a college in Missouri, true story, wrote this. I left work early so I could have some uninterrupted time studying right before the final in my class. When I got to class, everybody was doing their last minute studying. The teacher came in and said he would review with us for just a little bit before the test. we went through the review most of it right from the study guide but there were some things he was reviewing that I had never heard of when questioned about it he said that they were in the book and we were responsible for everything that was in the book we really couldn't argue with that finally it was time to take the test our prof instructed leave them face down on the desk until everyone has won, and then I'll tell you when to start.

2:10 When we turned them over, every answer on the test was already filled in. The bottom of the last page said the following. This is the end of the final exam. All the answers on your test are correct. You will receive an A on the final exam. The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get an A. You have just experienced grace.

2:50 He then went around the room and asked each student individually questions like, what is your grade and do you deserve the grade that you are receiving and how much did all your studying for the exam help you achieve this final grade now i'm not a crier writes this student i'm not a crier by any stretch of the imagination but I had to fight back tears when answering those questions and thinking about how the creator had passed the test for me. Discussion afterwards went like this. I have tried to teach you all semester that you are a recipient of grace. I've tried to communicate to you that you need to demonstrate this gift as you work with young people. Don't hammer them. They are not the enemy. Help them, for they will carry on your ministry if it is full of grace. Thinking about how some of us had probably studied hours and some just a few minutes, but had all received the same grade, he pointed to a story Jesus told in Matthew 20. The owner of a vineyard hired people to work in his field and agreed to pay them a certain amount of money. Several different times during the day, he hired more workers. When it was time to pay them, they all received the same amount. When the ones who had been hired first in the morning began complaining the boss said should you be angry because I am kind the teacher said he had never done this kind of final before and probably would never do it again but because of the content of many of our class discussions he felt like we needed to experience grace

4:55 Why didn't I have a teacher like that when I was taking those final exams? Why didn't you? Oh, everybody's talking about grace. We ain't going there.

5:17 Not on your life. Oh, we love it coming from God, but just don't expect it from fallen folks like us. too bad of all the things Job had to endure the final insult was enduring the graceless presence of alleged friends Stop and do a quick review when the bottom dropped out of his life. he lost his property and dwellings and a way to make a living because all of his servants were killed.

6:13 And then he lost all 10 of his children, all now grown, which he no doubt buried with his own hands, he and his wife. and then he lost his health, and running, itching sores, oozing with pus, covered his body from his hair to his toenails. So miserable was this man, he could not rest during the day or sleep at night, not for very long. And he wound up living at the city dump, a place called the Ash Heap, where dung was finally deposited and burned. And there...

7:07 he lost his hope. A small handful of men left their homes with the intent to bring him comfort and sympathy. Check Job 2.11. That's why they left to come to Job. They were friends. About his age, maybe a little older, maybe one or two younger, but his contemporaries came leaving home and going to the trouble of traveling to the city dump of Uz, the town where Job lived. and they sat in silence staring at him, trying to believe it was the same man that they had seen in their previous reunion, because now he was swollen and dirty and broken, and his head was shaved.

8:08 and then their worst mistake of all they started to talk to him and they unloaded the truck. They judged him. They shamed him. They blamed him. One cruel statement after another with graceless, blunt words. They humiliated him. And the book... includes it all. I'm simple enough to think that Job probably kept a journal or his wife did. Who could have remembered such philosophical meanderings as filled the poetical part of the book?

9:06 and these men spoke to him in cycles, you remember. The first round of insults came from Eliphaz, and then Bildad, and then Zophar, strange names, real men. But all three of them spoke, and Job answered, and that finished that first cycle. That was done, and wouldn't you know it, a second cycle began. In the second cycle, which starts in chapter 15, Eliphaz takes off the gloves.

9:42 It's time to really get down to business, Job. And there is not even a hint of grace. Not a hint. Now I understand you're all looking ahead to see how many more chapters of this are we going to be going through When I walk down the aisles and greet people before church service starts I like to say hello and get to know folks And normally they answer back that they're glad to be here Or they look forward to coming Now I'm hearing more and more Now how long are we going to be in Job? my kids are now emailing me get past job dad how graceless huh i understand you you think i wouldn't love i'm taking it in chunks i'm doing chapters folks today three chapters we're not going to analyze this thing to the point of giving blood however you got to take enough time to appreciate the messages that they are teaching us.

10:58 Eliphaz speaks the second time. Actually, he throws his fist. They're called words. In chapter 15, he delivers a series of rebukes. These are graceless words for a grieving man. In case you wonder what they sound like, they begin with pride, verse 2. Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge and fill himself with the east wind? The word himself is really in the Hebrew belly. Should he fill his belly with east wind? There's pride in verse 2, followed by insult. should he argue with useless talk or with words which are not profitable indeed you do away with reverence you hinder meditation before god then there's guilt for your guilt teaches your mouth and you choose the language of the crafty you deceiver you your own mouth condemns you. So there's condemnation. Not I, I'm not the one condemning. Just listen to what you're saying, Job. Your own lips testify against you. And then in seven, eight, and nine, there is exaggeration and sarcasm where one humiliating question after another is later asked. Verse seven, were you the first man to be born? In other words, you think you have a monopoly on, on truth and wisdom, Job? Were you brought forth before the hills? Do you hear the secret counsel of God? Has he somehow brought you into a corner and whispered to you his insights? You think you've got a corner on inspired information, Job? Can you imagine a man with the gall to stand before a man literally shrinking in pain and unloading such a verbal truck on him

13:05 one after another. You say, maybe, yeah, I can imagine it happened to me. It maybe did. Or, truth be told, in a vulnerable moment of admission, you may have done this with one of your own kids.

13:25 Or with someone who you felt had it coming. They just had it coming. Well, Job didn't. Verse 9 what do you know that we don't know? What do you understand that we don't? Verse 11, are the consolations of God too small for you, even the words spoken gently with you? He saw himself and his friends as speaking gently, gently. Referring to God, behold, he puts no trust in his, quote, holy ones. And the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, man who drinks iniquity like water. Those are sharp teeth, aren't they?

14:20 having rebuked him, he follows it with reminders of the fate of the wicked, 17 to 35. Job, because you're wicked, you writhe in pain, verse 20. So there's pain all your days. You're getting what you deserve, Job. Numbered are the years stored up for the ruthless. Verse 21, after constant misery, there's terror. Sounds of terror are in his ears. While at peace, the destroyer comes upon him. He does not believe that he will return from darkness and he is destined for the sword. So there's terror and loss and torment. And then there's fear. Verse 23, he wanders about for food saying, where is it? he knows that a day of darkness is at hand and finally distress and anguish terrifying there's this overpowering distress and anguish why eliphaz just tell job why all right verse 25 because he that's job you have stretched out your hand against god you conduct yourself arrogantly against the Almighty.

15:37 That's why. And Eliphaz backs away and stares at him with that glare. You are getting exactly what you deserve. You are getting exactly what you deserve. the style of communication is not that unusual to those who lack grace. It may not be this brutal, it may not be this sharp, but have you noticed when you deal with people who deal back with you lacking grace, when you're down, they kick you. When you're struggling, they add to your pain. when you're confused they blame and shame and when you're drowning they hold you under other than that they're pretty good friends And you know what makes it just bitterly cruel?

16:40 The man is in such grief. Cynthia is my longtime friend Dr. Lucy Mabry Foster died last Monday Lucy had already, and she and her family had been through an enormous amount. Lucy had earlier been married to Trevor, got his training at Mayo's, and became one of the fine ear, nose, and throat surgeons in the Dallas area. He was one of the four who had traveled to the Focus on the Family retreat in Montana and was flying back. the plane crashed and four fine men of God died in that crash.

17:32 The Mabry's son, the older son, Dan, had been on his honeymoon one day. So Dan returned home and was in some of those flights looking for the hope of his father's life, only to finally, ultimately face the fact his dad had perished. The city of Dallas mourned. It made the headlines, and some of you were at the funeral.

18:01 As we who loved one or more of those men reeled in disbelief, Lucy determined that she would not give up. Her family surrounded her with love and affection. Three almost grown, some grown children, put their arms around Lucy and she around them, and she, for 10 years, finished her education, earned her Ph.D., and became the first woman teacher at Dallas Seminary. Wonderful story of determination through her grief. Wonderfully, the Lord brought to her a man named C.L. Foster from South Texas. C.L. and Lucy fell in love, and five years ago, almost to the date of her death recently. Five years ago, they married.

18:56 And along with some of you, Cynthia and I were in the audience the day that they married. It was like charming. This is so great of God to do this. Monday morning, Lucy breathed her last in the arms of her beloved husband, C.L., in a vehicle, racing to the hospital in hopes of saving her life. We buried her on Thursday.

19:30 It was my privilege to sit for more than two hours and to talk with the family who had already been through the shock of the losing of their dad and now these three having to deal with the loss of their mother. and C.L., who had lost his first wife in tragic circumstances in a car crash,

19:55 sitting there. You could see the wheels turning and tears running from his eyes. C.L. Foster and those children didn't need any condemnation. They didn't need any rebuke.

20:17 They didn't need any insulting, humiliating questions. They needed grace. They needed grace. I couldn't help but think of that when I saw Job as he sits here taking this,

20:42 awash in his grief, trying his best to really believe that this man who was once a friend is saying such a thing. And I'm thinking, Lord, if you teach me and if you teach through me to others something through this, teach us the value of grace. Teach us about grace. Show me again that it is always appropriate, always needed, not just by a student taking a final exam. You need it. I need it. The person sitting just next to you that you've never met or behind you, that person needs it. You have no idea what that person is going through. If you did, chances are you'd be prompted even quicker to show grace. But there's everything inside us that turns and we get wrong side out.

21:39 Or I have a good friend who says we get sideways. We get sideways with people and we just have to just gouge them. Stop. Stop the gouging. I tell you, I admire the 38 verses that follow Eliphaz's rebuke and unfair reminders.

22:09 Job, in effect, says, you want to take the gloves off? I'll do it. My hands are covered with sores, but I'll take the gloves off. And I find four responses in Job that are admirable. And honestly, I do not find them shocking. Some of you may. First of all, he is disgusted with his friend.

22:33 I mean, that is an appropriate response. Don't answer out loud. Ever been disgusted with a friend? Yeah. I'll answer for you. Yeah. How many times? Look at verse 2. Sorry comforters are you all. How's that for an opening line of disgust? sorry comforters that's an oxymoron Maybe you're not familiar with the term. Some of you are, I realize. Webster defines an oxymoron, a combination of contradictory words, like governmental intelligence. That would be an oxymoron. or teenage innocence. That's another one that comes to mind.

23:30 Sorry comforters. You think this is comfort? What a sorry example of comfort you are. one man writes, Job complains that often he has heard many such things as these comforters speak, but in his present plight, such pious platitudes serve only to increase his sorrow. I thought I was hurting before you showed up, but now that you've talked, man, the pain is unbearable. He is disgusted with these people. By the way, no extra charge for this little insight. People who are graceless don't usually connect the dots unless you are really strong in return.

24:25 It just goes. So you have to plan a blow right on the schnozzle, you know, you have to be sure that you get through. so sometime, bear with me, sometime you have to fight poison with poison. You have to be blunt in return, or they'll walk all over you and stomp you into the dirt.

24:49 Job says you are a sorry comforter. Speaking the truth cuts through the fuzzy, vague, feel-good verbiage that often characterizes our talk. that's why I plead with all of us to learn how to speak truth ideally in love but if I've got to have truth Without love, I'll take truth. It's better with love, but truth is always best. truth hurts is a familiar saying but there are times it's unvarnished direct blows are needed you know when you sometime hear them when you lose your job and someone who is in authority and has the unhappy task of facing you with the loss of job, that person, if there's integrity, you know what I mean, if things are in place, it's appropriate, that person at that moment is telling you things you should never forget. He or she is cutting through the veneer and getting to the reason you have lost that job.

26:15 and in this case Job is saying your words are wrongly stated there's a bad motive there's an intent that's tarnished there are words used that are brutal and I'm telling you you are a sorry comforter the second after disgust He's distressed. Verse 7. And if you will allow me, he is distressed at God. Now bear with that. I know that's shocking for some of you to hear it, but it happens. He's talking about God. I think correctly the H in verse 7 is capitalized. He has exhausted me. he even sees him as angry verse 9 his anger has torn me and hunted me down and gnashed at me with his teeth verse 11 god hands me over to ruffians look at these guys that showed up he tosses me into the hands of the wicked now watch this he's it's like he's a rag doll in the mouth of a rottweiler i was at ease verse 12 he shattered me he grasped me by the neck and he's shaken me to pieces set me up as his target verse 13 his arrows surround me without mercy he splits my kidneys apart open he pours out my gall on the ground and breaks through me with breach after breach, he runs at me like a warrior.

28:02 that's the way I'm feeling says Job he is distressed if you find fault with Job it's because you've never been there there's not a counselor who has been in the work of counseling very long before she or he meets up with someone who is distressed over the way God's treating them they don't understand it remember Job still doesn't know the plan between Satan and God. We were introduced to it clearly in chapters 1 and 2. Job never was in on that conversation. He doesn't know why one day the bottom drops out and tornadoes and fires and death and destruction and finally ill health and all of that breaks on him and God doesn't say a word to him.

28:55 And he's visited with God all of his adult life. No wonder he's distressed. I have been through times, I'll confess to you, where I have just said in unguarded moments, God, what in the world are you up to? What is this about? To the best of my knowledge, I am not doing this wrong. I am not doing it for the wrong motive. I haven't gone into this in any way. Please me or placate somebody else. I'm trying to walk in obedience and boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like you're driving home from work and you had a bad day at the office and the guy behind you runs into you. And the guy in the Ferrari in front of you, you run into him. me. Ferrari drivers tend not to like that when you hit them from the rear. And he climbs out of his car. When you get home, you don't have any milk. And your dog's hungry. He's been gnawing on a cabinet. And your kids are mean, and they're gnawing on each other. And you're out of money.

30:06 And you think, wait a minute. What is this all about, God? What is this about? And no answer comes and tomorrow's worse than today. And next week is intensifying all of it, making last week look like a piece of cake. And top of all of that, you lost your job. And on top of that, I just could go on and on. Your imagination is as good as mine. Believe me in the unguarded moments when the lights are out and the doors are closed and Swindoll isn't around to listen and nobody's going to tell on you, you think like this or you are weird. You are weird.

30:54 Don't tell me you're too spiritual to think like that. You see him running at you like a warrior. and of all things, he doesn't even tell you why. And so you could guess the third reaction. He is depressed. He is depressed. Look over here at 17, 1 and 2. My spirit is broken. My days are extinguished. The grave is ready for me. Surely mockers are with me and my eye gazes on their provocation Eugene Peterson renders this in the message My spirit is broken, my days used up, my grave dug in waiting I believe what brought Job to this point of depression, I believe it's best expressed in the Latin words, Deus absconditus.

31:58 I came across those words this week. Deus, D-E-U-S, is the word in Latin for God. Absconditus gives us our word abscond. What does abscond mean? Webster says it means to conceal, to depart secretly and hide oneself. He's gone. I can't figure him out. When I pray, I don't get answers. When I devote myself even more deeply to doing his will for all the right reasons, I continue to lose and the heavens are brass? God has absconded with the blessings.

32:51 Hold on tight. C.S. Lewis said it like this in a grief observed. Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing him, you will be, or so it feels, welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate when all other help is vain and what do you find a door slammed in your face? And a sound of double bolting on the inside after that Silence You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. Deus Abscunditus. It expresses the problem without any ruffles and without any literary release. He's hit bottom.

33:46 disgusted, distressed, depressed, and finally completely despondent and ready to die. Verse 11 of chapter 17, my days are past, my plans are torn apart, even the wishes of my heart. You know what that sounds like? My dreams are dashed, my hopes are gone. they make night into day saying the the the light is near in the presence of darkness now look at this look at this verse if I look for shield as my home that's the grave sheol is the Hebrew word for the place of the departed spirit if I look for the grave as my home I make my bed in the darkness if I call to the pit that's where I'm going to be dropped in my coffin if I call to the pit you're on my father to the worm which is down there getting ready to eat on my body you are my mother and my sister where now is my hope let's call this Job's Requiem will it go down with me to Sheol shall be together go down into the dust one man renders if all I have to look forward to is a home in the graveyard if my only hope for comfort is a well-built coffin if a family reunion means going six feet under and the only family that shows up is worms you call that hope no if hope and I are to be buried together I suppose you'll all come to the double funeral. You know what he's thinking? Everybody's talking about heaven ain't going there. Heaven, heaven. I'm going to the grave. You know what he's missing?

35:43 you know what he's missing he is missing what only grace can bring him he has no grace from anybody around him nobody there to reassure him he is totally confused Philip Yancey in an outstanding book Disappointment with God tells this true story once a friend of mine went swimming in a large lake at dusk as he was paddling at a leisurely pace about a hundred yards offshore a freak evening fog rolled in across the water suddenly he could see nothing No horizon, no landmarks, no objects or lights on the shore. Because the fog diffused the light, he could not even make out the direction of the setting sun.

36:46 Now picture this. For 30 minutes, he splashed around in panic. He would start off in one direction, lose confidence, and turn 90 degrees to the right or left. It made no difference which way he turned. and he could feel his heart racing uncontrollably. He would stop and float, trying to conserve energy and force himself to breathe slower. Then he would blindly strike out again. At last, he heard a faint voice calling from the shore. He pointed his body toward the sounds and followed them to safety. Yancey adds something like that sensation of utter lostness must have settled in on Job as he sat in the rubble and tried to comprehend what had happened he too had lost all landmarks all points of orientation where should he turn?

37:49 God the one who could guide him through the fog stayed silent All right. but Satan had challenged whether Job's faith could survive with no outside help or explanation. When God accepted those terms, the fog rolled in around Job. You could read Job's story, then breathe a deep sigh of relief.

38:14 God settled that problem. After proving his point so decisively, surely he will return to his preferred style of communication, communicating clearly with his followers. You could think so unless, that is, you read the rest of the Bible. I hesitate to say this because it is a hard truth and one I do not want to acknowledge, but Job stands as merely the most extreme example of what appears to be a universal law of faith.

38:42 The kind of faith God values seems to develop best when everything fuzzes over, when God stays silent, and when the fog rolls in. disgusted, distressed, depressed. despondent.

39:06 The chapter ends. You know why I love the Bible? On this earth, everybody doesn't live happily ever after. That's a fairy tale. or to borrow from my military life, that's a crock. you're believing a hoax if you're waiting for it to get better this earth doesn't deliver better that's why we need grace marriage doesn't get easier it gets harder alright There's one honest couple here ready to admit it. Work doesn't get easier, it gets more complicated. Child rearing doesn't get easier.

39:59 These people with babies one and two years old, they think they got it tough. Wait till they're 14. And wait till they're 18. Don't amen that. You know, discourage the high schoolers. It gets harder. You thought you were fat when you got married. Look today.

40:20 It gets harder. I always tell brides and grooms, enjoy the pictures. You'll never be thinner. it's harder we need grace we need grace grace, grace God's grace we need grace to survive we need grace to drive we need grace to stay married we need grace to keep a church in unity we need grace, grace, grace when we are going under grace, don't kick us don't hold us under Okay. You know, if I called the shots, I would have relieved Job five minutes after it all had gone. You know, I'd have brought all those kids back to life.

41:11 I'd have cut the lips off of Eliphaz. After three sentences, that's the way I'd do it. Cut those lips off, baby. That didn't work. I'd take the neck, you know, just go after it. Who needs Eliphaz? But you know, you know, you probably wouldn't mature a lot under my kind of style. You'd just enjoy the comfort. We'd all go on a motorcycle ride and have fun.

41:42 As Cynthia says to me sometimes, Honey, if everybody handled things like you wanted, all we'd bring to the party is balloons. Nobody would think to bring the food. so the fogs rolled in all hell is broken loose Welcome to the human race. That's why the Savior died.

42:15 That's why God gives us salvation, because we'd foul it up. We'd come in our own works and be proud that we got there by our own effort, strut around heaven like a peacock. Hey, what'd you do to get here? how many sermons you preach 40 i preached 80 well i preached 250 graham i preached 80 million then we'd all be there because of pride nobody will feel that they've deserved it because we get there by grace through many dangers toils and snares I have already come. His grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. Get it! Get it!

43:08 Quit working for it. Quit laboring over it like somehow you've got to keep him on the cross and you hold him up and maybe you'll make it. No. given our own way would all be worse than Eliphaz And so. even though Job thinks he's going to miss heaven, even though he thinks the grave is the end, bless him. There is a tomorrow. And there is a way beyond. Amazing grace, how sweet. the sound that says