EBG Preken

Jesus’ unbreakable Bible
Sermon series on biblical trustworthiness. Sermon 1

Foundations are important. I had a conversation with Daniel Pulley yesterday as he was trying to paint his loft. The primer on the wall was not dependable and every time he applied a top coat, it would bubble up as it dried.
I think this happens in our Christian lives sometimes. Our foundation isn’t strong and someone asks us a question that we’re unsure of. We may survive the incident, but our paint has started to bubble. And instead of addressing the foundation… a lot of times we just a picture over it - or worse… we pretend like it’s not there.

Truth is something that matters. And where we find our truth is perhaps the weightiest of matters. We claim that Scripture is our source of truth, but it has been startling to me how little understanding of the truth we claim to believe Christians have.
In two weeks we will celebrate Easter - Christ rising from death. But can you defend why you believe Christ rose from the grave?
Before we get there, we should have an understanding of our source of truth… and what better place to start then asking the question: What did Jesus believe about the Bible? Our faith is centered on Him, so we would do well to understand His thoughts about Scripture.

Scripture cannot be broken John 10:35
Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees again. They just heard Him call Himself “Son of God” and they are picking up stones to deal with this problem. Jesus stops them dead in their tracks with Scripture. He quotes an obscure Psalm. Let’s face it - this Psalm would not be in your top ten of Psalms worth memorizing. And yet there it is - at the forefront of Christ’s thinking: Scripture has called men “gods” - so why are you ready to stone me?
To understand this reference, we should take a quick detour to Psalm 82. God is speaking in judgment to magistrates and judges. Men of authority, who - just like all other humans - are going to face judgment and die. In their authority they are like gods (elohim), but they aren’t God, because they will die.
Christ’s point in quoting this, is not to prove His divinity - simply to call their angry conclusions into question… which He successfully does.
What is more significant in this altercation is their common ground, which Jesus appeals to in a sentence that we might almost miss: Scripture cannot be broken.
The Scribes and Pharisees accepted this as well, but so does Jesus. Scripture will not fail and as a foundation and source of truth it will never bend or break.
This goes to the heart of the matter: Jesus believes that Scripture is trustworthy.

Scripture may not be abolished Matthew 5:17-19
Jesus makes another point in His preaching. During the Sermon on the mount Christ explains that He hasn’t come to abolish the law. This could have been a conclusion some of the hearers drew. He is destroying much of the traditions of the Pharisees. They were man-made traditions, but so ingrained in religious thinking, they had attained a similar level of authority as Scripture. So when Christ starts to correct man-made traditions, it might seem like He is doing away with the law.
Not so. Christ underscores that not even a yoda or tittle will fail or be taken away from the law. He has come to fulfill the law.
One of the most impressive evidences of this, is Christ’s attack of the Sadducees recorded in Mark 12. Jesus demolishes their denial of the resurrection by appealing to Exodus 3 - Moses and the burning bush. God introduces Himself as “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is not the God of the dead… but the living. Jesus bases this entire argument on the present tense of the verb. Even this is authoritative! No yod or tittle will fail and you can base precepts and arguments on the tense of a verb!
This is a high view of Scripture.

Scripture ought not be trivialized Matthew 12:38-42
Jesus quotes Jonah as a sign against the Pharisees. He believes it is true history. If you were going to waffle anywhere, it would probably be Jonah. Come on… swallowed by a big fish? Puked up on land three days later? And he survived? Sounds more like a fairy tale.
Thing is, that no one would ever appeal to Snow White to argue against a serious point. Watch out for terrorists today… they might offer you something appealing that can kill you. Just like the poisonous apple. And even if you did, you would never follow it up with: "The seven dwarfs will rise up in judgment against you, if you fall for their trickery. Because you should have learned from this story."
Christ’s argument only makes sense if Jonah is true history and Nineveh really did repent. Beyond that, adding the Queen of Sheba to the argument - a historical figure - only underscores the true accounts of Scripture.
You can’t ignore Scripture as silly… Christ certainly didn’t.

Scripture must be heard with God’s voice Matthew 19:4-6
One last example. Christ quotes - in another altercation with the Pharisees… they really don’t learn - that from the beginning divorce wasn’t the ideal. He quotes Genesis 2. In Genesis 2 it isn’t immediately apparent who said these words. They are attributed to perhaps Adam or maybe the narrator. When Jesus quotes them, however, they become the very words of God.
For Christ, Scripture was written by human authors, but may be interpreted as the voice of God to mankind.

Christ loved Scripture. He quoted it often, applied it to the various circumstances of the people He met - be it a disciple or a Pharisee. He fulfilled Scripture, memorized Scripture, taught Scripture, appealed to Scripture, and even at His weakest moments - with devil in the wilderness and tortured on the cross - it was Scripture that filled His mouth. He believed it to be true in its chronology, history, recording of God’s dealings with Israel and prophecy concerning future events.
For Christ Scripture is important, sufficient and trustworthy.... And it is His source of Truth. Is it your’s?

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God breaks His silence
Sermon series on the book of Job. 5/6
Job 38-42:6

Job’s did not suffer due to personal sin, but Job did sin due to personal suffering.

I think this is something we can all relate to, whether we care to or not. It is all too easy to allow difficult circumstances - or even not so difficult circumstances - to lead us into temptation. We question God all too easily. We hurdle accusations - spoken or unspoken - at the God of love and wisdom. Job’s sin is one that I can relate to.
Throughout the long droning chapters of Job, righteous indignation has welled up within me. I have wanted to take up Job’s cause. I become angry at Job’s friends. I discover I’m questioning God along with Job - perhaps not as outright, but I find myself understanding where he’s coming from. “Why?” drips from my lips as well and the I wonder why God has kept silent. Why when this man IS righteous, does God seem distant and does heaven seem to turn brass. Why is it that when we need God most, we feel our loneliest. And this is why Job is such a long book. Suffering doesn’t have easy answers… it isn’t fixed with a band-aid. Superficial axioms and simple theology don’t do the trick. We must struggle to hold the course that God has plotted for us in order to learn, to glean, to discover and to suffer for the sake of our holiness. God has a plan and often it takes long lonely tear-stained nights to achieve the work that God is wanting to accomplish in us.

Elihu started with angry words of truth, but ended with profound insight into righteous suffering and a heartfelt urging that Job listen and consider how great God is, how great His acts are and how great His justice is… and that He is beyond our comprehension.
It is at this point that the skies turn grim and God begins His monologue. It has been long coming. But what is not said in these monologues is nearly as important as what is said. So let’s discover what God says.

In two monologues God asks five questions of Job. First three questions. Then in the second, two.

Do you grasp Creation? 38a
God moves from the foundations of the earth, to the design of its laws and asks Job if he was there to witness it. He designated the shorelines and the depth of the sea. Can you do that Job? Can you make a sunrise? Can you end a day? Do you know the hidden secrets of the earth?
There are still places that we know little about on this earth.

Do you grasp Outer Space? 38b
Do you know where light comes from? Can you tell me where the snow is stored? How about rain? Dew? Clouds? What about ice? Or lightening? Can you bind the stars together into constellations? Can you control their influence on earth at all? Can you make a storm come?
The weather man might be able to tell us a storm is coming, but there still isn’t a thing we can do about the weather.

Do you grasp the Animals? 39
God moves through various animals. Six land animals and four flying animals. Can you tell them where and what to hunt? Do you know when it’s time for the goat and the deer to procreate? Did you five the donkey its freedom or make the ox meek? Have you considered the ostrich? Did you give the horse its strength or teach the falcon where to build its nest and how to find its prey?

Job falls silent and says as much when God asks for him to answer in verses 35-38. Job feels very small. He has nothing to say. He’s starting to get the picture.

God asks two more questions in His second dialogue, but first offers Job a job.
Job is permitted to be judge, if…
God tells Job to man up. Teach me, if you will. You question my justice and want to prove me wrong. So you may deliver judgment and God will praise you, if you can do the following:

Do you control Behemoth? 40:10-19
God describes a great beast. Some translations supply “hippopotamus” here, but any honest reading of the description falls short. The tail of a hypo in no way compares to a cedar tree (verse 12). God is describing a mightly beast of His creation… a dinosaur. The largest dinosaur we have unearthed - the sauropod - fits the description here.
Job, can you control this beast? No answer is needed. He can’t. God says: I can.

Do you control Leviathan? 40:20-41:25
God goes into even more detail in describing Leviathan. This is an ocean beast that is incredible. In the latter half of chapter 41 it is described as breathing fire. A dragon. Now, this is where many just discredit the book as folklore and put it away. But God’s entire argument would be lost if He was speaking of some fictional beast. There are fossils that match this description and fossils can’t tell us if it breathed fire. Throughout history tales have been told of beast in the sea - even modern history. There is much about the deep blue sea that we don’t know.
Job… I control this beast. Do you?

And this is where Job rightly repents of His sin. He does so in chapter 42 verses 1-6. It is a sweet confession of a suffering saint that said too much. He quotes God’s introductions in verses 3 and 4 and acknowledges: “I spoke before understanding; I drew conclusions about things that were too wonderful for me to comprehend.”
“You said I could teach you… I had heard spoken of You, but now I have tasted. I take it all back. I repent.”
This is the impact of seeing everything God does and everything He controls. This is what happens when you boggle you mind to consider how you really have no control to change anything. And this is when we are ready to really taste and see that God is good. And we are ready to trust. When God is big.

What do we learn?
God controls things that I don’t even know about with a wisdom that far supersedes my understanding and an omnipotence that dwarfs my abilities.
The intimate work of suffering in the life of a righteous man deepens the relationship with God and reveals aspects of His character that could not have been learned any other way.
These chapters are precious for us to read when we find ourselves in a Job-like frame of mind. When we question God’s timing, His providence, the circumstances He is allowing, the trouble at work, with my spouse and the stress with the kids. When we don’t understand what God is doing and how it makes any kind of sense. When we begin to ask the Why? Question. And when the Sovereign seems distant and heaven seems silent. That’s when you need Job chapter 38 through 42. Listen in as God helps Job to find the right perspective. Let your heart be quieted by God’s questions.
Learn to be corrected and brought back to reality… God’s in control and He knows a lot more about everything than you do.
The biggest question in the midst of your biggest suffering is... do you trust He knows what He is doing?

Angry words of Truth
Sermon series on the book of Job. 4/6
Job 32-37

Job’s faith has remained strong in the face of terrible havoc. His theology has remained steady despite the onslaught of his friends. He has disarmed them in the midst of terrible suffering, but his view of God has taken a plunge. These rounds of debate have left him feeling distant from God. He mourns his lost reputation, declares his righteousness before God and the unfair nature of his circumstances, and finally he calls God to account.
Have you ever won the argument, but lost perspective and created distance in the relationship? This is where Job has ended up… and this - honestly - is where many faithful, Church-attending, tithe-contributing, evangelising Christians live their lives.
Theology at the expense of relationship. A God I prefer to keep at a distance… I keep Him happy with my good deeds and appeasements, but I’m afraid of what He might do to my life if He comes too close.

Elihu shatters this construct.
Did you notice that Elihu seemingly comes out of nowhere? And he comes swinging. He’s angry. For all the right reasons, but his tone is hard to accept or condone… and you have to work to get to the heart of what he’s saying. But in the end… Elihu is right.

Four observations about Elihu’s monologue:
>> The author presents the words of Elihu als a balance between Job and his three friends. 32:2-3 In other words… this isn’t more of the same - even though he might say something here or there that agrees with something one of the others has said.
>> There is no rebuttal from Job. The easiest explanation of Job’s silence is that he agrees with what Elihu says and is rebuked.
>> God does not condemn Elihu for what he said and in fact begins His monologue where Elihu ends. 38-42
>> Elihu contributes something to the discussion on Job’s suffering that has not yet been mentioned. 36:5-12, 15

Three Rebukes (32-34)
Elihu comes out swinging and rebukes the three friends first for not answering Job’s question. The simply dealt in simplicities… “Job, such suffering must have been caused by your personal sin. So confess already.” They never listened to the content of Job’s sputterings in order to consider anything else. They were stubborn and unhelpful and caused more harm than good.

Elihu rebukes Job as well… on two fronts and he uses his own words to condemn him.
33:8-13Job said that he is righteous and has not sinned. And then you called God your enemy.

Elihu rebukes Job for overstating his righteousness, exaggerating God’s role in this, and furthermore for calling God to account. “When does God ever give an account for His actions?” (33:13)

Elihu then explains that God communicates in many ways. Number one: He speaks (14-15)
secondly: through suffering (16-19).

Now let us be careful in placing too much emphasis on dreams. Job was written before the giving of the law and so there was no written Word of the Lord. He spoke through men and in dreams. The plain written Word of God has replaced these temporary and often unclear revelations of His will. For a longer study of his, I direct you to Paul’s explanations in 1 Corinthians 11-13.

Elihu’s conclusion is that suffering communicates God’s will… to open our ears. To save us (verse 18) and not to condemn us. He will say more on this.

34:5-12Job said that God withheld justice and has made Job appear to be a liar.
Elihu rebukes Job by taking these words to their logical conclusion: “What’s the point in trying to please God?” (verse 9). He strongly disarms this conclusion and restates a point Bildad made: God doesn’t bend justice. He is not unjust. (verse 11-12)

Elihu calls for Job to repent of these conclusions (35:2-3)… and we don’t see Job countering Elihu’s rebukes.

A theologie of Suffering (36:5-12, 15)
So what about righteous suffering then? Elihu offers a coherent theology of suffering that includes God’s righteous condemnation of the ungodly, His protection of the righteous, and His permission of suffering in the lives of the righteous.
“And when...” in verse 8 is important. And when the righteous are bound in chains, when they suffer, it is to reveal their actions and pride. He opens their ear to rebuke and repentance.
Verse 15: It is through the suffering that God saves the sufferer.
God has a purpose with the suffering of His saints.

>>The suffering of the righteous is a sign of God’s love to refine His faithful servant.> God and Satan employ suffering as a means to an end: Satan wants to wrench our faith away from God (bid God farewell) and God wants to enlarge our faith in Him.

>>God works as a wise surgeon, who despite the pain, will cut away every spore of idolatry in our heart.

There is unfair suffering that we must endure for the hidden lesson. God works to enlarge our faith in Him… and He shakes the bottle or our lives to reveal the dirt that has settled at the bottom. He knows it’s there - even when we don’t - and He knows what it will take to clean it up.
Do you trust Him when begins this work in your heart?

Three friends come for a visit

Sermon series on the book of Job. 3/6
Job 3-31

Job’s faith has remained strong in the face of terrible havoc. Of course he doesn’t like it, but He doesn’t for a moment let go of God, instructing even his wife that God gives and takes away (1:21) and would we receive the good from the hand of God and not the evil? (2:10). Again these statements of Job are followed by an inspired comment that he did not sin with his lips in saying this. This goes two ways: he was sincere in saying these things and he was not wrong to attribute his circumstances to the hand of God.

The Why-question lingers. It is this question that will prove the hardest for Job to face.

At the end of chapter three we are introduced to three friends. They come and sit. Silently. This would have been good, if only they had remained silent.

JOB BREAKS THE SILENCE (3:1-26)
In chapter three Job’s torture erupts in a 26-verse lament, in which he curses the day he was born. You don’t hear many sermons on Job chapter 3… it’s not an uplifting text. The raw, unedited emotions of a man who has lost everything and who can’t make heads or tails of it.

I think this is all too human. I can handle loss. I’ll survive the death of loved-ones. I can face health problems. If only I understood why… what the end-game is… what the value of it all is… what the purpose in it is…
It’s the not knowing that fuels Job’s lament. And he basically concludes: “If this is what my lot in life was to become, why was I ever born?”

The style of writing shifts from prose to poetry starting in chapter 3 and continues through 42:6. Poetry is better equipped to communicate the depth of emotion and anguish that follows. Poetry is designed to make you feel something, rather than to share axioms or convey logical truth. And if you read these chapters in preparation for today, I imagine you have felt confusion, frustration, anger, shock, pity, sadness and a bunch of other emotions.
So let these chapters do their Spirit-inspired work in your heart.

JOB DEFENDS HIS HONOR (4-31)
There are three cycles of discussion and they follow the same pattern:

First Round
Elifaz 4-5
Bildad 8
Zophar 11
Discussion

Second Round
Elifaz 15
Bildad 18
Zophar 20
Debate

Third Round
Elifaz 22
Bildad 25
Dispute


Their argument comes down to a simple axiom: Suffering is always the result of sin. So their conclusion becomes: Job’s incredible suffering points to an incredible sin.

All three friends underscore the assumption that Job must have sinned. Bildad even concludes that the destruction of his children must have been their deserved punishment due to their sin (8:4).
Their remedy is: repent.
Elifaz tells Job that if he were in his shoes, he would turn to God and repent so that God will restore blessing (5:8). Bildad preaches to Job that he needs to repent and God will uplift him (8:5-7) and Zophar promises that all this will pass if only he would seek God (11:13-16.
Interesting to note is that there three men each come to the same conclusion from different starting points. Elifaz draws from his experience (says that many times: “I have seen”) and even talks about having had a vision to explain things to him. Bildad preaches tradition… what the forefathers have taught us and “there are certain things that we all know are true.” Zophar is the most direct of the three - perhaps he is the Dutchman - and is very emotional in his pleas to Job and resorts to name calling.

The discussion round swings from each friend to Job as he defends himself and Job remains persistent that he has not committed any sin to deserve this suffering. He asks them to tell him how he has failed (6:24) and he declares that their assumption is not true: “The guilty and the innocent suffer!” (9:22)

The sad things is that two more rounds follow and nothing new is added to the discussion and no new arguments are presented. It is simply rehashed and restated with less and less tact and grace.
You will notice that the symmetry breaks down in the third round… Bildad delivers a measly 6 verses that really say nothing and Zophar doesn’t say anything. Job finishes with his longest answer and has emerged victorious in this dispute. The simple theology of the three friends doesn’t hold and the poetry reflects that.

In chapter 42:7-9 we read that God is angry at the three friends for what they have said. They never did represent God in their dealings with Job. They said things that sounded good, but they weren’t.

WHAT DO WE LEARN?
I would like to share three lessons I take away from Job’s friends’ visit:
>> Don’t be too critical of the words of lament that flow from the mouth of a suffering saint. Be merciful. Do they really believe everything they are saying? Perhaps not. Perhaps, they are simply trying to put words to how they feel and words are so often inadequate. There is always time for correction and rebuke. Let love and compassion come first.
>> Truth can be misapplied, applied superficially and be communicated without love. It strikes me as I read these chapters that there are many good things tucked away in the speeches. But then they turn around and shock me with their application of that truth.
>> Suffering communicates the gospel. The problem of suffering is a favorite among unbelievers to throw in our faces. “How can a loving God, permit such suffering in this world?” My answer to this question has become gratitude. I thank them for bringing this up. Because suffering and our innate repulsion to suffering underscores that something isn’t right. God didn’t create the world this way. We broke it! Adam sinned. I sinned. We all rebelled against God and we suffer the consequences. Romans 8 tells us that all of creation is longing for the day when this suffering will end.
And it will end. We don’t need to fear this question, because we have hope. Our suffering serves a purpose. Our suffering will be alleviated. Our Savior suffered so that we would not.