Text: Job 42:1-6:
Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 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. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job was a righteous man. How righteous was he? Pretty righteous. The first verse of the book of Job says, In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
Job was so righteous that God bragged about him twice. In Job 1:8 God said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” That’s what God said about him. He said the same about him again in chapter 2 verse 3.
Satan asked permission to afflict Job, and God granted it. Job lost his wealth, his servants were murdered, his children all died in a natural disaster. Job responded to that by saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And the Bible says, “In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.”
Then Job was physically afflicted with painful sores on his skin. His wife wasn’t much help in their mutual grief. She told him to curse God and die. He responded to that by saying, “Shall we receive good from the Lord, and not trouble?” And again the text says, "In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."
I think it is fair to say that you and I do not measure up to Job. I know that I don’t. Though it may be unwise to compare our righteousness to someone else’s, I know that if I were to stand next Job, spiritually speaking, it would be clear that he is a giant and I am a dwarf.
In the 31st chapter of Job, Job defends himself against false accusations. His friends have been assuming that he must have done something wrong to bring down all this misfortune on his head. He denies all charges. He says thing like, “I rescued the poor. I helped widows and orphans. I provided hospice care for dying people. They blessed me. I supplied needs of the blind and the lame. I defended victims from bullies and oppressors. I never cheated anyone. I never exploited anyone. I never even rejoiced over the downfall of my enemies.” Job goes on like that for 40 verses.
In his long list of good works that he did and bad works that he didn’t do, there are two that stand out to me because they seem to form bookends of great moral behavior. One of them involves a temptation that doesn’t afflict anyone today – no one that I know of. And the other is a temptation so universal that few men have ever resisted it. With regard to the first temptation, Job said If I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.
Have you ever been tempted to worship the sun or the moon? I haven’t. For us the sun is a flaming ball of gas and the moon is a rock in space that that astronauts have landed on. No one here has ever offered a sincere prayer to the sun or moon. We don’t sacrifice to them or beg their favor. But that was a real temptation in Job’s day. Many people did that. Job, however, declares with straight face, “I resisted the temptation to worship the sun and the moon. I never even blew them a kiss in secret - I swear!”
We can laugh at that. But no worthy man laughs at what he says in verse 1 of that chapter: I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. Inappropriate desire, desire for the wrong person, is not culture-specific like sun worship. Inappropriately indulged desire - lust – is everywhere. It is universal in all times and places and virtually all men understand this.
What I find striking about this covenant that Job made with his eyes is that he is the only one in the Old Testament that I know of who did this. Who else abided by this covenant? Abraham had concubines, plural, according to Genesis 26:2. So he not only looked at young women, he slept with them. Jacob had 2 wives and 2 concubines. David had 7 wives and 10 concubines. Solomon notoriously had a thousand. And none of those men, as far as I can tell, ever expressed any guilt or shame over that. They only seemed to regard it as wrong if they took a woman who belonged to somebody else – as when Reuben took his father’s concubine Bilhah, or Judah took a woman who should have belonged to his third son, or David took Bathsheba who belonged to Uriah. All these men knew that you couldn’t take someone else’s wife. But in their minds, as long as the woman was single, you could have as many as you wanted or could provide for.
Not Job though. Job went beyond the local custom that you couldn’t take another man’s wife, and realized that he also had to be faithful to his own wife. He refused to ogle other women, even if his culture told him that that was ok as long as they were single.
The point that I am trying to make is that Job was righteous from A to Z. He resisted sins that were culture-specific and sins that were culture-universal. He resisted sins of commission and sins of omission. A sin of commission is a bad thing that you do, while a sin of omission is a good thing that you neglect to do. Job not only avoided evil, he actively practiced good, and his goodness had a timeless quality. If you plucked him out of his era and plopped him down at any point in the timeline of human history, he would remain a righteous man. The same cannot be said of heroes like Abraham, Jacob, or David.
One more thing about Job’s goodness. He was not falsely humble. That is, he did not say “Oh I’m just a worthless piece of garbage – you have no I idea how bad I really am. My heart is truly dark within.” No, his self-assessment agreed with God’s assessment of him. As we noted earlier, God said twice that Job was blameless. Job agreed with that.
There is a famous verse, Job 23:10, where Job says, “When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” All my life I have heard that verse interpreted to mean, “When God puts me through suffering, it will refine me. It will make me better. These trials will burn off impurities and leave only gold behind.” That is a nice and noble thought. And there are other verses that make that point – most notably in James chapter 1.
But that is not what Job meant. What he meant was, “When I am put on trial and all the evidence is laid out, I will come off smelling like a rose. Everyone will see that I am innocent. In fact, I want my day in court. Put me on the witness stand. Call forth the witnesses. I’ve got nothing to hide. On that day when all is known and made public, I will be exonerated. I’ll be found not guilty. I will come forth as gold.” Job was not speaking of the refining power of suffering. He was talking about his confidence that he would be vindicated when his case came to trial - if only he could get a hearing in God’s courtroom. That is what he says in Job 31:6: "Let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless."
I hope I have established the point that Job was a good man. That is what the text says about him, that is what Job says about himself, and that is what God says about him. But these facts leave us with a mystery. Why, at the end of the book, is Job ashamed of himself? Why does he hate himself? That is literally what he says. He coats his sore body with dust and ashes as a sign of repentance and declares self-hatred. He says to God, "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."
Was Job right to feel such remorse and express it to God? If so, there is a troubling follow-up question. If as good a man as Job felt such shame before God, what should I feel? If Albert Einstein fails a physics test, how am I going to do on it? If Hercules says, “This rock is too heavy,” how will I lift it? Do I need to be at least as ashamed as Job?
I am sorry to say that some preachers teach that it is wrong to feel shame before God. I cannot overstress how alarming I find that teaching. Back in February I heard a guest preacher say this: “Shame is a disfigurement of who we are and a dishonor of who God is...Shame has a heartbeat that says ‘I am not worthy,’ and that is the ultimate lie of Satan.” This preacher believed that we dishonor God by feeling shame. According to him then, Job’s shame would have been a disfigurement of himself and a dishonor to God. By believing himself to be unworthy, Job was falling for “the ultimate lie of Satan.”
False teaching like that damages the soul and must not be allowed to stand unrebuked. Therefore I say to you, in dead earnestness, if you are ashamed of your sin, you are not dishonoring God. If you say, “I am unworthy,” you are not believing a lie of Satan. Rather you are believing a truth from God – a truth that must be acknowledged in order to receive the good news of Jesus Christ.
If you read the Bible and pay attention, you will find again and again that God’s chosen ones acknowledge their unworthiness. They give full expression to a deep sense of shame. When Isaiah beheld the glory of God he said, “Woe is me, for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” When Peter saw Jesus manifest divine power, and he fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” A tax collector felt unworthy to approach the temple and was too ashamed to lift his eyes heavenward, so he looked down and said miserably, "God be merciful to me the sinner.” A criminal crucified next to Jesus said, “I deserve to die like this.” John in the book of Revelation said, “I fell at his feet as one dead.”
None of these people were ever rebuked for feeling ashamed and unworthy. To the contrary, they are held up as examples for us. Jesus said that that miserable shame-filled tax collector went home justified – but not the Pharisee in that story who felt no shame. All six of the shame-haunted men that I just mentioned are saved: Job, Isaiah, Peter, the tax collector, the thief on the cross, John the Elder. Those of us who make it to heaven will see them there. As Jesus said to the crucified thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
The heretical preacher I mentioned a minute ago who derided shame said this: “Shame blames, shame hides, shame makes you say you’re not worthy of love. The ultimate lie.” In response to that I say, yes, shame blames – it blames oneself and makes no excuses. Shame hides – yes it hides, as well it should. Can you imagine Adam and Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, if they didn’t run and hide? Can you imagine them standing around the garden calmly chomping away at the fruit? God appears, and they say, “Oh hi, God. (chomp chomp). Yeah, you told us not to do this but we’re doing it anyway. We decided that being ashamed would disfigure us and dishonor you, so instead we’ll be proud of defying you.”
Does shame make you want to hide your face? Of course it does! When hymnwriter Isaac Watts wrote of the sun going dark at midday during Jesus’ crucifixion, he compared the sun’s bashful modesty to our own:
Well might the sun in darkness hide and shut his glories in
When Christ the Mighty Maker died for man the creature’s sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face while his dear cross appears.
Dissolve my heart to thankfulness and melt mine eyes to tears.
Pride struts boldly before God. Shame cowers, and humbly covers its face.
And as for shame making us say that “we’re not worthy of love”? Of course it does that. Thank God it does that! Because in direct contradiction to the preacher who said “It’s a lie to say we’re unworthy of God’s love,” the truth is, we are unworthy of God’s love. If you think you are worthy of God’s love then you do not a clue as to what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. Jesus died for the unworthy. The Bible insists on that. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
God’s true saints have always acknowledged their unworthiness. Elizabeth Clephane, 19th century Scottish hymnwriter, wrote this:
From my stricken heart with tears, Two wonders I confess:
The wonders of redeeming love, And my unworthiness.
She also acknowledged her shame. She wrote,
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face.
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss;
my sinful self my only shame. My glory all the cross.
Let me tell you something about the author of those words. Elizabeth Clephane was an orphan. Her father died when she was 8. Her mother died when she was 13. Her caretaker older brother abandoned the family. But despite the cruel hardships she endured, Elizabeth was known for the kind acts of charity she performed even though she herself was physically frail. She died at the age of 38.
I want to meet her in heaven so I can say thank you.
True saints of God like Elizabeth Clephane never dream of saying, “I am worthy of God’s love.” Instead, they bemoan their unworthiness. They are ashamed of their sin. It is the proud sons and daughters of hell who are unashamed, who count themselves worthy, and who think that God - if he exists – definitely owes them something.
Which brings us back to Saint Job. We have said that Job, like Elizabeth Clephane, was a profoundly good person. God said so himself. But that leaves us with this mystery. Why, at the end of the book does Job feel ashamed and in need of repentance? Why does he say, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”?
Let me give you one general reason and one specific reason. The general reason is this. In Job chapters 38 through 41, Job has a direct encounter with God. God speaks to him at length. And I think it is fair to say that no one comes out of such a direct encounter with God unshaken. Because then you’re not merely talking about God or thinking about him or even talking to him. He is talking to you, he’s manifesting himself to you. Who can stand upright before that? All your bluster is taken away in an instant. All your posturing and self-confidence evaporate like dewdrops before an atomic blast.
When Moses asked to see the glory of God in Exodus 33, God told him, “Moses, that would kill you. I’ll cover you, and pass by, and then you can see the back trailing end of my glory. More than that you cannot bear.”
When Job heard directly from God it was more than Job could bear. Then Job was no longer saying, “God, I’m a good guy – why are you treating me so badly?” Even the best of men become conscious of their sin in the blinding white light of God’s holiness.
But there is also a specific thing that Job is repenting of. He is now ashamed of the fact that he criticized God. He had complained that God was being unfair to him. We see that several times in the book of Job. When the crises first hit him he said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” and “Shall we accept good from the Lord, and not trouble?” But later, after his friends bore down on him so unrelentingly, Job began to break. He could no longer hold on to his humble piety and he began to challenge God.
In Job 10 he said, “I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me?"
In Job 16 he said, "God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked...He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground."
In Job 19 he said, "God has wronged me and drawn his net around me."
There is much more, but that will give you the idea. Job backtracked on his original commitment not to charge God with wrongdoing. He could not quite maintain the faith he had at first. It reminds me of the way that Peter stumbled in his faith when he was able to take a few steps on the water but then was overcome with doubt and sank into the sea. I also think of Peter saying to Jesus in Matthew 26:35 “Even if I have do die with you, I will never disown you.” He certainly meant that when he said it. But within 8 hours his courage gave way and he was denying that he ever knew who Jesus was.
Great saints like Job and Peter can maintain their courage and piety for a while. But they are sinners like us and they have their breaking points. All of us have our breaking points. The Bible says, “There is none that does good. No not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
In recent years there has arisen, unfortunately, a bevy of preachers who urge us to commit Job’s folly by challenging God and questioning the wisdom of his decrees. They call this foolishness “being honest with God.” They say “Don’t sugarcoat your prayers – tell God why you’re mad at him and how he let you down. Just put it all out there.” Philip Yancey has been the poster child for this “authenticity,” and even wrote a book with the blasphemous title, Disappointment with God. I must warn you about such teachers, because they now write bestsellers that turn up in Christian study groups. My lovely wife had to endure one of these awful books in her women’s group, (Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton). Again and again throughout the book, Staton gives advice like this:
If you can’t pray in phrases of praise and adoration, don’t fake it. Pray your complaints, your anger, or your confusion.
Talk to him about the ways he has let you down or disappointed you.
Tell God your disappointments in prayer, and don’t water it down. Forget your manners. Tell it like it is.
We have to invite God – the very One who broke our trust – into the muck with us.
God broke our trust? God let us down? God disappointed us and we’re going let him have it? That is the attitude that had Job hanging his head in abysmal shame and despising himself at the end in Job 42. The fact that he had dared to challenge God and question God’s wisdom had him repenting, deeply remorseful, in dust and ashes.
This morning I have come to you with a solemn warning against that dangerous teaching running so rampant in today’s evangelical culture. Just as there are preachers who say it is wrong to feel shame – that it dishonors God, and it’s wrong to believe we’re unworthy of God’s love, it’s a lie of Satan – so also there are teachers now who urge us to commit the only sin that we know Job was guilty of, the sin of saying to God, “What’s the matter with you? Why are you doing this to me? You shouldn’t allow this.”
I want to close by giving you a couple stories of two modern day Elizabeth Clephanes. Two women who did not regard themselves as worthy of God’s love, but who trusted absolutely in his good sovereign will no matter how it affected them personally.
One was my mother. When my father died suddenly when I was a teenager, my mother grieved with sorrow unspeakable. And she was asked by a well-meaning but misguided soul, “So, are you mad at God?” The expectation was of course she would be mad at God. That would be perfectly understandable. How could God so abruptly take away the love of her life?
Mother was baffled by the question. No she wasn’t angry with God. She was sad, saddened to the point of despair, so sad she did not want to go on living. But she knew that God had the right to take her husband home, and she had no standing by which to challenge his wisdom in doing so. She trusted God. She trusted God, and in so doing set an example for her 5 children to follow including me.
Another such woman was Beth Norton. I never met her. She was the first wife of my friend Herb. She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30, and she made it through 10 years of treatment before the cancer took her life at age 40. Herb’s father, her father-in-law, would take her to chemo treatments when Herb had to go to work. Herb’s father was not a believer. But one day he asked his daughter-in-law, “Do you ever ask God ‘Why?’” And she answered, “Why not me?” She had a peaceful acceptance of her condition, knowing that she was no more immune to suffering and death than anyone else. She simply trusted God, whether that meant her earthly life was long or short.
Many years later, at the age of 99, Herb’s father finally yielded his life to Jesus Christ and God saved his soul. Herb firmly believes that one of the streams of influence that led to his father's conversion was his daughter-in-law’s testimony in the face of her suffering and death. Beth Norton was not a shameless woman who proclaimed herself worthy of God’s love. Nor was she an angry soul who challenged God’s wisdom in allowing her to be afflicted and terminally ill. She was a humble servant of God who knew that she was a sinner saved by grace, and who acknowledged that all her ways were directed by a good and sovereign God.
Yesterday I called Herb to confirm the details of Beth’s story. Afterward I sent him a copy of this sermon in an email. At 6:23 this morning he sent me the following text: “Paul, today is Beth’s birthday. Thank you for the special remembrance of her. I shared this with my two sons this morning. May God bless your message in a special way today to all those there. Your friend, Herb."
Let us pray.
God, if there are any here who should feel shame but do not, then please, by your grace, induce that now. Cast down the eyes of any who would dare to look upward in brash self-confidence. Awaken to wisdom fools who think they know better than you, and who believe they would act more justly than you if only they had the power. On behalf of fellow sinners who acknowledge our unworthiness, I ask you to be merciful to us, and grant us more grace, so that through your Spirit we might be transformed into the image of your Son Jesus who died to save our souls. Amen.
