Job: A Broken Man

Job was a broken man.

His friends found him sitting in a pile of ashes, scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery trying to get some relief from the boils that covered his entire body. Before his friends arrived, his wife of many years, broken hearted over watching her husband suffer so much, said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job’s horrible physical condition was not the only thing that left him broken. He had been a very wealthy man, but all of his wealth was gone in one day. His wonderful family of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, all died in a tragedy on the same day that he lost all of his wealth.

Who was this man Job, and what had he done to deserve such loss and suffering in his life? Here’s how the biblical writer describes him, “That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” (Job 1:1b)

But the broken man, the man sitting in that pile of ashes, scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery, the man whose wife felt so badly for him that she told him to go ahead and curse God and die—better to see him dead than going through such suffering—and the man who was “blameless and upright,” “Opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.” Do you blame him? Would you be the one to judge him for these words:

“Let the day perish in which I was born,

and the night that said,

‘A man-child is conceived.’

Let the day be darkened!

May God above not seek it,

or light shine on it.

Let gloom and darkness claim it…” (Job 3:1-5)

Do you understand why Job was so despondent? Can you identify with his depression? He did everything right; for he was “blameless and upright,” and he “feared God and turned away from evil,” and yet all this calamity had befallen him.

It brings up the age-old question, why do bad things happen to good people?

Job and his friends engage in a conversation, a debate, an argument about why these terrible things had happened to this good man. His friends were persistent and insistent that Job had done something to deserve what had happened to him. He was persistent and insistent that he had done nothing to deserve this kind of punishment—losing his wealth, the death of all ten of his children, and the horrible boils that had broken out over his entire body.

In the midst of their arguments (chapter 28) Job asked this question:

“But where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?” (vs. 12)

Who can explain what happened to Job and why? Your short answer might be that the Satan—ha-satan in Hebrew—the adversary, the accuser, was allowed to test Job, but does that fully answer Job’s questions, or ours? (See the story of Job in chapters one and two.)

Where can we find the wisdom that life often demands of us? Life is full of decisions that require wisdom. So Job’s question is as pertinent today as it was when he asked it centuries before Jesus was born—“Where shall wisdom be found?”

“Mortals do not know the way of it (its price),

and it is not found in the land of the living.” (vs.13)

Do you see why Job would say such a thing? He was grappling with trying to understand why his life had fallen apart when he had surely tried to do right, and everyone who knew him agreed, he was “blameless and upright.”

In verse 20, he asked a second time,

“Where then does wisdom come from?

And where is the place of understanding?”

And then it was like Job had an “Aha” moment:

“God understands the way to it,

and he knows its place.

For he looks to the ends of the earth,

and sees everything under the heavens.” (vss. 23-24)

God sees and knows the bigger picture. We see life one event at a time. Our view is limited by time and space…God’s view is not.

Job conclusion about wisdom:

“And he said to humankind,

‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;

and to depart from evil is understanding.’” (vs. 28)

It’s much easier to jump to conclusions, to let someone else think for us; to make decisions based on the ways of the world than it is to seek wisdom from the Lord. But what if we look back on our lives and have to say,

“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42:3b)

Isn’t it better to seek the wisdom and counsel of the Lord now?

The Apostle James helps us: “If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.” (1:5)

Here’s wise advice from the word of the Lord: “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” (James 1:19)

In a culture where we are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to anger, the word of the Lord is certainly applicable.

Wisdom! Who has it? Where can it be found? Is wisdom worth the effort?

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” (James 3:17)

We’re in the midst of trying the wisdom of the world. How’s that working out?

“Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still;

teach the righteous and they will gain in learning.

The fear of (respect for) the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (Proverbs 9:9-10)

Is it time to let go of the wisdom of the world—the wisdom of the world involves “envy and selfish ambition…and is false to the truth.” It is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish.” (See James 3:14-15)

Join us Sunday morning at 11:00 at Greenfield, 384 Fairmont Road, Gretna or on Facebook Live on the Greenfield Baptist page. Sunday, join us for the celebration of ordination as we ordain Cameron Hubbard as the newest Deacon in our Greenfield Family of Believers.