Ephesians 4:7-16; Wisdom – What could Solomon and Job not know?

Class Outline:

Thursday September 9, 2021

 

We’ve touched on the seeming conundrum of the sovereignty of a God of goodness and love with the existence of a world containing much sin, evil, and suffering.

 

As one good commentator puts it:

 

“Faith learns to live with seeming inconsistencies and absurdities, for we live by promises and not by explanations. We can't explain life, but we must experience life, either enduring it or enjoying it.” [Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary]

 

We cannot discern the result or outcome of our righteous deeds. They may give us a long life of influence (Apostle John) or they may kill us (Apostle Paul). That wisdom is reserved for God alone. Solomon thought he could know all the knowledge of the world. Job thought he could know all the knowledge of God. Both were in error.

 

We are to go to Proverbs and use wisdom to follow the revealed will of God, knowing by faith that all results are His.

 

PRO 20:24

Man's steps are ordained by the Lord,

How then can man understand his way?

 

PRO 16:1-2

The plans of the heart belong to man,

But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight,

But the Lord weighs the motives.

 

Could Job or his friends have imagined an aspect of God’s world that included an accuser whom God would allow to test us? Can we imagine all the things that God will allow in our lives?

 

In the opening of the Book of Job, Satan accuses Job of only doing the right thing, of only living a wise life, because of the promised reward. Remember, Proverbs told us that wisdom would mean a long and healthy and prosperous life.

 

PRO 3:16-18

Long life is in her right hand;

In her left hand are riches and honor.

17 Her ways are pleasant ways,

And all her paths are peace.

18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her,

And happy are all who hold her fast.

 

PRO 4:10

Hear, my son, and accept my sayings,

And the years of your life will be many.

 

PRO 8:18-19

"Riches and honor are with me,

Enduring wealth and righteousness.

19 "My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold,

And my yield than choicest silver.

 

Satan said that Job was just working the system.

 

Satan said that Job found out the means of God’s blessing and did what he did to get them.

 

JOB 1:7-11

And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you come?" Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it." 8 And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil." 9 Then Satan answered the Lord, "Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 "Hast Thou not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 "But put forth Thy hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse Thee to Thy face."

 

JOB 2:3-6

And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to ruin him without cause." 4 And Satan answered the Lord and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 "However, put forth Thy hand, now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse Thee to Thy face." 6 So the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life."

 

We find that Job wasn’t at what Satan accused him of being. God allowed Satan to crush Job’s life, and that made clear that Job actually did love God because of who God was and not what Job could get from Him. However, like all of us, Job didn’t know, couldn’t know, all that God was, nor all that He was doing in this world.

 

We should remember that Job was in great physical pain and suffering tremendous loss in life when he started searching for answers. Solomon, on the other hand, had a great deal of physical comfort and possessed an overabundance of things when he was conducting his search. What they share in the despair and misery that attended the result of their quests into the wrong things. We each can find ourselves in either place, prosperity and leisure, or adversity and pain, and from there we must be careful to live, in our consciences, in the sphere of God’s wisdom alone, or in other words, keeping our eyes fixed upon Christ.

 

And so, when enough pain and loss had burdened the soul of this great man of God, he despaired.

 

JOB 2:13-3:1-4

Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.

 

1 Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

 

2 And Job said,

 

3 "Let the day perish on which I was to be born,

And the night which said, 'A boy is conceived.'

4 "May that day be darkness;

Let not God above care for it,

Nor light shine on it.

 

2CO 4:8-10

we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

 

Neither Job, nor his three cold friends, could discern an aspect of God’s world that included the accuser whom God would allow to test us.

 

Job’s friends could only conclude that Job had sinned in some way that warranted the judicial response from God. Job could only conclude that God was torturing him.

 

It is common for ignorance to exist in believers until God can reveal Himself more to them. God’s revelation of those truths is blocked by our misconceptions, sinfulness, ignorance, pride, etc. For instance, no one in Israel, including the Lord’s disciples, could imagine a Messiah who could be illegally tried for a capital crime and then overpowered and nailed to a Roman cross to die.

 

JOB 4:7-9

"Remember now, who ever perished being innocent?

Or where were the upright destroyed?

8 "According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity

And those who sow trouble harvest it.

9 "By the breath of God they perish,

And by the blast of His anger they come to an end.

 

Eliphaz continues:

JOB 5:17

“Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves,

So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.”

 

Job knows that this is true, but that it is not relevant to his current situation.

 

Job’s lack of understanding of how God may test His faithful, leads him to ask God if He is a spiteful, tyrannical God.