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A Lament

A Lament
September 30, 2018

Scripture: Job 30

I. You lament that God’s good order has been turned upside down.

A. God’s good order for the world and for life is found in Galatians 6:7; “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” You reap what you sow. That’s the way life should be. Job, who used to be respected by everybody, was now being mocked in his suffering. And he was being mocked by the lowest rung of society (vs. 1). These young men mocking Job were useless (vs. 8). Yet they made fun of Job in his trials. Can you see why the respectable Job would have felt like the whole world had been turned upside down?

B. What do these young men do to Job? Verse 9 says Job has become their song. They taunt him with a mocking song. Verse 10 says they spit at Job. Verse 12 says that they cast up against Job their ways of destruction. They try to destroy Job. And all their efforts to harm Job strips away from Job his honor (vs. 15). At one level, it is the responsibility of these low-life young men for bringing this pain into Job’s life. But in vs. 11 we see who is really responsible. God. Job is experiencing the judgment of God as an innocent man. Can you see why Job laments?

II. You lament that there is no answer to your prayer.

A. The innocent man Job has prayed for an end to his suffering, and he has prayed for God to show him an answer to why he is suffering. Verse 20 says, “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” Job prays, and the response is silence. How does Job feel about that lack of response from God to his prayer? Verse 21 says, “You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.” Now, we know and Job knows, that God is not cruel. We know that God is good, loving and just in all He does. But when you are suffering and God is not answering your prayer, does it feel like God is cruel? Honestly, yes.

B. Even Jesus had his prayers go unanswered. Do you remember what Jesus prayed on the night before He died? He prayed, “Father, if possible, take this cup – the cup of my death on the cross – away from me.” But what was God’s answer to Jesus’ prayer? No. No, you must go to the cross. Was God being cruel in not answering His Son’s prayers? Actually, God was being love. The cross was the only way that we could be forgiven for our sin.

III.  You lament that there is no justice in your sufferings.

A. Job was a blameless man. What is Job doing now in his suffering (vs. 24)? “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?” Job is in great need. So, he stretches out his hand to God like a beggar, begging for help. Now, if you reap what you sow, Job should have gotten help at this time. In verse 25 Job says, “Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?” But what actually happened to Job? Verse 26 says, “But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.” Sometimes we need to sing the laments in the Psalms according to Ephesians 5:18-19: “But be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”

 

Application:
Trust that when we sing a lament, God hears us. And in His time, He will do right by us.

Sources:
The book of Job
Commentaries on Job by Francis Andersen & Christopher Ash