God’s Purpose in a Variety of Testings: Physical Sickness and Pain

God's Purpose in a Variety of Testings: Physical Sickness and Pain

Amen. Let's take our Bibles, please turn together into Job 19 this evening. Job chapter 19 this evening. We are continuing to look at God's purpose in a variety of different tests that he sends to our lives. This evening I want to look at the test of when God takes our health away from us and gives us sickness. In Job 19, I'd like to begin in verse number, pick up the reading in verse number 13.

Job says, he hath put my brethren far from me and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed and my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house and my maids count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant and he gave me no answer. I entreated him with my mouth. My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children's sake of mine own body. Young men saw me and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh. And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Have pity upon me. Have pity upon me. Oh, you my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. Why do you persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were now written, oh that they were printed in a book. Well, they were. They were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock, forever. For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me. And we'll conclude the reading there in verse 27 this evening.

You know sickness comes in a variety of forms. I mean we can have temporary bugs, sickness, flu, you know, that we think when we went through January, well, December into January, we had a lot of flu, stomach bug, RSV, whatever all the different things were and that sometimes can last a week or maybe the effects of it can last for two or three weeks, depending on the severity of the sickness. Then there are chronic things that just continue to cause pain over and sometimes that pain gets worse over a period of time. There are autoimmune issues. There are cancers that we have to deal with the reality. And we have a number on our prayer lists right now, don't we, that are having to face the reality that if the cancer is not able to be removed, brought into control, go into remission, be healed completely of it, whatever the case may be, that we know that we can pass at any time, but I think that reality becomes very much very vivid for those people that are walking through that valley with cancer.

But sickness affects not only our body, it affects our relationships, it certainly can affect our spirit, it can affect our outlook on life and our understanding of what is my purpose in all of this, what does God want for me in the midst of all of this? I thought I would be doing X, Y, and Z, but now my path has been redirected.

There's a lot here and there's some other passages we're looking at with Job tonight, but let's look back in verse 13, we see in this passage tonight a lot of relationships, well all of his relationships were affected by the sickness that came to him. He, verse 13, he hath put my brethren far from me and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. He's probably here speaking of included in this, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, you know, Elihu, these different friends and brethren of his, they're estranged. He regarded them as friends, but they weren't really proving themselves to be friendly in this situation. The scripture says, a brother is born for adversity, right? Well, they were frankly just failing in the midst of the adversity. They were there, but they were miserable comforters to Job. His relatives abandoned him, we see in verse 14. His maids, his servants acted like they didn't know him. We see that they avoided him like, I mean, to use a phrase, they avoided him like the plague, because basically he had the plague.

And we see that God had allowed Satan to smite Job. God had allowed this to happen. He allowed Satan to smite Job. This was not because of a lack of faith that he didn't have divine health. This wasn't because of a lack of faith on Job's part that God says, because you're living so ungodly and you've wandered far from me, like I probably go, I'm going to send bad things to your life. So that's the assumption of the friends, right? That was the assumption of these friends, but that wasn't the reality of it. Job had to deal with misunderstanding in all of this too. And his friends just coming, making assumptions about why this was happening to him.

But Satan, God allowed Satan to, look back in chapter two. Let's read the words there. Chapter two, verse seven. What does it say specifically? Chapter two, verse seven tells us what God allowed Satan to smite Job with. In verse seven, so Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. He had toe to head, smote him with boils. And these boils, it's, obviously, because in verse eight, we read what he did. He took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal. He took up that piece of that pot and he started scraping his boils and it was itching. I don't know, I remember having chicken pox, don't scratch, don't scratch, get the oatmeal bath, don't scratch, it'll scar more if you scratch. And I'm sure that was just a drop in the bucket to what Job was going through with these boils because I remember that being quite unpleasant, but from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, he was scraping himself with this potsherd.

And then in chapter seven, verse five, we also read this. Chapter seven, verse five says, my flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. Of course, he covered himself, he sat coughing and covered himself in ashes as he was there in the dust. In chapter seven, verse five, his flesh was clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin is broken and become loathsome. We don't specifically read that it was oozing pus, but it probably was because his skin was broken. It was itching. It said the worms indicate infection and parasitic. I don't know what all was going on, but there was some bad stuff, broken skin and infection, most likely here with all of this itching.

And then he says, look over in chapter 30, if you turn over there with me in chapter 30 and verse 30, we read there. If you think you have it bad, sometimes just read these passages again and you'll be reminded that maybe you don't have it quite as bad as he had it, but in chapter 30 verse 30, it says, my skin is black upon me. Is this, some have suggested, necrosis? Is this just a discoloration because of infection? What all is this referring to? The scabbing of the skin, there's blackness of the skin. And then it says, he says, and my bones are burned with heat. This fever because of the infection in his body, you know, what happens when you get fever, you get chills, you get shakes, you get weak, you just feel like, just put me out of my misery here. This is not feeling good. I don't think he had Tylenol either. I don't think he had Advil and all these things. Now, I'm sure there were some natural remedies, but that wasn't going to touch the condition he was in here. It was just, it was bad. It was very, very bad. And evidently, it was something out of the ordinary that he was having to deal with here. There were no specialists at Duke that could help him with his situation, so to speak. His appeal was to God. His skin was discolored. He had fever in his body.

He says in chapter 30 here as well, in verse number 17, look there in verse 17. My bones are pierced in me in the night season. My bones and my sinews take no rest. There's pain and restlessness in his body. There is, this is a very vivid picture of this being painted here. And this was ongoing. This was not just, you know, I get a little achy from time to time. No, this is, I can't even rest because of the pain. We've known of some people that have some severe conditions that caused them pain around the clock. And it's, I can't even imagine. I know after just that little episode of slipping and then slipping the other week and pulling something in my leg and then my lower back hurt and it just made me think about those who are going through chronic pain all the time with their backs. And they can't, it's hard for them to get rest and it can affect, it can affect your spirit. It can affect your outlook. It can affect a lot of things. If you've got that day after day after week after week of dealing with the pain, it can take away your desire to eat if the pain's bad enough. It can take away your appetite to the point where I don't even want to look at food right now because I just, I'm hurting so bad. And we know this, the sleep was taken from him or at least good sleep was taken from him.

We notice in chapter 19 back in our text again in Job 19 verse number 17. He says, my breath is strange to my wife. You know, you can go through a whole lot of things if you have your wife, your spouse, with you through that, but even his wife didn't want to be with him because his breath stank, it stunk so bad. He just, just infection and just terrible. And we notice that he, I entreated for the children's sake of my own body, but my own wife didn't want to be near me. Even children didn't want to be around him. You know, children, they're kind of blind to a lot of things, aren't they? They don't see and aren't bothered by certain things that adults tend to be keen on, but even they didn't, probably didn't even recognize him very well. Probably he was looking at his skin, this broken, black, his bones are probably starting to show. He's not eating very well. It's not sleeping, bloodshot eyes, disheveled hair. He's just a mess. He probably doesn't even look, he probably was scary. And that's why a child wouldn't want to be around him, but he says in verse 20, my bone, he's talking about his weight loss here. My bone cleaveth to my skin. And to my flesh, I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. I'm barely hanging on here. And so all of this, one thing's compounding another, right, one problem is compounding another and it's piling up.

Well, there's a purpose in painting this picture here. We see in verse 21, he says to his friends, have pity upon me. Please, have pity upon me. Oh, ye, my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. It's enough that God is troubling me. Why do you fail to have pity upon me as well? Not that he was speaking ill of God, but he just didn't know why are you bringing this. If I've sinned Lord, show it to me. Show me my sin that I may repent of it. And so many words is what he said in the book. But the Lord was silent to him. He's working, but I cannot perceive him. Why do you persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh? Are you satisfied that I'm going through enough? And then you just pile on more? Well, the friends seem to have all the answers and they acted as if they were in the place of God, knowing Job must have done something to deserve all of this.

But like we said this morning, like we said in recent messages, what is there for Job? What is there for us to learn through the trials? What is there that God wants us, wants Job to learn through all of this? Well, he wanted Job to learn something other than self-pity through all of this. There was something more that God had in mind than, yes, obviously he was in pain. But there was something, there were some things that God had on his heart in mind in allowing this to happen to a godly man, to a man that feared God and kept his commandments. I think the first thing that we have to say that God wanted Job to learn, which is very clearly spelled out in Scripture, is patience. Patience, it's very, let's turn over to James chapter 5. It's spelled out for us. There is, in James chapter 5, verse 11. There's no question left about what God wants us to see in Job. One of the things that he wants us to see about him in James 5 and verse 11. Here we have this, let's go back to verse number 10. Take my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.

So Job needed patience with God and with men. Job needed patience with God and with men. We do not have patience. We need God to give us and enable us to be patient, enable us with his patience. Now, Job responded very well at the outset of this trial and he responded by saying the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen, that's good. But that didn't make the trial go away, did it? It was just getting started. It was just beginning to ramp up. Oh, that we probably wish that our trials, we could just say thank you, Lord, for sending that trial. You can take it back now. I'm finished with this and, and yet, that's not how it usually works, is it?

It's here, this word for patience as we've seen before is the word… one blessing is that from the very beginning he clearly saw the Lord has taken away. It is the Lord who has done this. If I did not, so there was this understanding to a degree where he had hope in the Lord. The Lord has done this. I don't know why he's done it. I wish he would tell me why I did it. I wish if there was something I needed to confess and get it clear that it would just be spelled out plainly for me so I can get this right and we can move forward. But even waiting for the answer took time. The Lord had a purpose in him waiting and remaining under this and when things get messy in our lives and they don't go according to the script of what we thought in our minds how it was going to go, right? Or how it should go, when they get messy, our spirit, our outlook on life is tested and this is where we begin to learn patience. We don't learn patience in a pop-this-thing-in-the-microwave sort of attitude and it'll be out in 30 seconds sort of thing. There is, we have to go through the mud sometimes and our strength and spirit will fail and will crumble and will break down and then the Lord will say, but I am here with you still, even though your strength has failed, even though you are weak, when you're weak, then that's when strength can be seen, when you have nothing left in the tank, so to speak. I'm not able to, I can't do this Lord, I'm too weak. Well, let me teach you about patience, the Lord may say. The Lord is wanting to teach us that, and that moment when we come to that brokenness and helplessness in the trial, and not just a panic but a humbling, Lord help me.

I remember Pastor Peacock when he had that stroke, you know, he was standing here in the pulpit on a Sunday night many years ago and had to go to the hospital, and he just slumped over and he couldn't say anything, couldn't say anything, but I remember the next day or two being up at the hospital with him, he said, and he wasn't able to say many things because he would have to go back through speech therapy to really be able to form his words better, and he got most of his speech back, but he said I just couldn't even think and form words very clearly when I was going through that. He said all I could think was help Jesus, help, and that's all he could say, you know, help me. And that is, you know, even when we don't know the words, the Lord knows, he knows the groanings of our hearts.

Now Hebrews 12 says, now no chastening, verse 11, let's look over there, Hebrews 12:11, you know, you know the verse in Hebrews 12 verse 11, now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, yet we're to count it all joy, aren't we, right? But it doesn't seem to be joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. You know, there's a certain aspect of the trial where the Lord places in our lives, but we have to cooperate with, we have to agree with him, you know what you're doing Lord, you know the way that I take, I don't know what all is on your mind here, but I trust you and Lord I need your patience, help me to count this, help me to count it all joy, because you're the one that's put this in my life, you're the one that's placed it here.

Alfred Edersheim said, we cannot understand the meaning of many trials. God does not explain them. He didn't explain it to Job. To explain a trial would be to destroy its object, which is that of calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience. If we knew why the Lord sent us this or that trial, it would thereby cease to be a trial either of faith or of patience.

When Elihu, remember these first three, they were, they just got worse and worse as they went along, you know, Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar, they just got, it just evolved and almost like a mud-slinging match between them, you know, and it was just not profiting anybody, and Job eventually stopped talking to them and just turned his plea to the Lord in the midst of what they were saying, but then there was that other friend that evidently had been there, but he was just listening to all of this, and he finally spoke up, Elihu, in chapter 32 I believe it was, and Elihu called, he had a balance, we would say, of sympathy but firmness in what he was saying to Job, and he said, you know, he exhorted Job to be patient, to be teachable, to trust the Lord, and in so many words throughout his words to him, he asked some good questions of Job, but all of this ultimately was God's purpose in it. Job, I want to teach you patience through this trial. There's some things we can't learn unless we go through the valley. There's some things we will never learn, we can't learn the experience of someone else having gone through it, we can hear about it, just like, you know, before my wife had these four children, you know, people talked, told her, you know, what kind of, what their experience was in having a child and what it's going to be like and all of that, and of course everybody's experience is different even with that, but then when you go through it, then you know, oh, that's what it's like. And I wasn't the one that had to bring these children into the world, but oh, I sure was glad when they came into this world and they were here with us. That's a trial that a woman has to go through physically, even though there is great joy on the back end of things, it is a very real thing where the heart of that mother is crying out to God, help me Lord, give me the strength to bring this child into the world.

Well, something else we see that Job learned through this physical affliction was empathy. He learned empathy. Well, he was surrounded by a lack of empathy and sympathy, wasn't he? He was surrounded by friends who were not showing pity, were not showing empathy toward him. It was almost as if, well, we've lived such perfect lives, we've never had any trouble, so you must have, you must have really done something, you must have done something terrible, Job, and you better make it right. Well, Job, because he was a red-blooded human being, he got feisty with them sometimes, didn't he? He got feisty and he says, in so many words, you think you're telling me something I don't know already? That's basically what he said on a number of occasions. He would say in Job 16, look over there in Job 16, what did he say to them in Job 16 verses 1 and 2? Then Job answered and said, I have heard many such things. Y'all, you have said a lot of these types of things, but miserable comforters are you all. If y'all are supposed to be friends, who needs enemies? If y'all are supposed to be comforting me, who needs comfort? He says in chapter 12, Job chapter 12 verse 1, let's look back there. Job answered and said, no doubt but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. When you die, all the wisdom on the earth, it's gonna go out with you because y'all are so smart, y'all are such wise. He was speaking facetiously here, he was speaking, certainly not, it seems to be tongue-in-cheek, but yet, but I have understanding as well as you, I am not inferior to you, yea, who knoweth not such things as these? Of course, I was speaking facetiously when I said that, you think you're so smart, you're telling me all this stuff like I don't know it. I wish I knew what the reason was, but you don't know any more than I do why God has brought these things into my life.

He was getting an attitude with them, he was getting, I don't think we need to sugarcoat it, he was not happy with them, he was irritated with them, whatever words we want to use. I don't, I don't see any of us not having some of these feelings if we had people that we thought were our friends coming in, not showing any pity toward us in the midst of everything being taken away. That's called kicking someone when they're down, kicking them when they're down. But then I think about what, when the Lord came in, he humbled everybody, didn't he? Humbled everybody when he says, time for you to stop talking, in so many words, and listen to me. It's time for you to stop this back and forth. Isn't that sometimes what we have to do? We come into a situation, in a room in the house, all right, everybody, children, quiet, mom and dad got something to say here. And this is how much more when God steps into the situation, here, be quiet and listen to what I have to say. And after God got done talking, hearts were changed, attitudes were changed, outlook was changed.

We notice here in chapter 42, at the very end of this book, Job 42, and Job, was Job wrong in what he was saying in a sense? Because they were miserable comforters, they were arrogant in thinking that they knew everything about Job's situation, that's true, but still it didn't justify Job's response to them. Two wrongs never make a right. Just because they were not being empathetic doesn't mean Job should have lost his cool, I guess we can say, against them. We can understand why he would have, but it doesn't, but the Lord had something greater in vision here. And Job 42 verse 10, look at what, when a right spirit was restored in Job here in Job 42:10, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends, when he prayed for his friends, and also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Well, if Job's friends, if Job's friends were truly pitying his situation, they would have said, Job, we want to pray with you today, we want to pray that the Lord will give you the strength in the inner man you need while your body is going through this weakness. They may have had thoughts come to their mind, this is not the time to pile on him, even if he has sin, let's pray, let's encourage this brother in the Lord, let's pray that the Lord will strengthen him in this situation, rather than just assuming things about him that they did not even know were true. Well, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he empathetically prayed for his friends. You know, maybe Job thought, I could have been in their shoes and acted the same way towards me, and yet we notice that he prayed for them, he cared about them, he prayed that the Lord would strengthen and restore them and heal them and help them to learn themselves what the Lord would have them to learn through this trial.

If we're angry with people and we're irritated at them and we're all flustered at them, we can't pray for them. We can't pray for people that we're angry at. We need to, we need to forbear one another in love, we need to pray that the Lord would even give us the patience that we need one with another and to be praying for one another. I know a few years ago, I remember in a message that I preached, when we're tempted to think wrong about a brother or sister, or maybe we even see something in that brother or sister's life and we say that just, you know, maybe that irks me or irritates me or something, we need to, instead of complaining and murmuring about them, and I realize, we need to pray for them, we need to pray for that situation, and it may be that in praying for them, the Lord will give us an opportunity to, in love, making sure we have removed any beam out of our own eye, go to them in a right spirit at a right time, maybe say something about that, but not in the spirit of, I know you're the problem, you know, that kind of attitude, no, to have that empathetic spirit towards those that are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But then we see Job's hope. The Lord taught Job to hope through the trial, to hope in the Lord, patience, empathy, and hope in God, even when we can't see what is at the end of the way, right? Look at, you know, the passage we spoke so often that Job said, but in Job 23, Job 23, there were times in here, and I think what we need to see in this is that Job came to these things through the test, through the trial, but in the midst of the trial, Job was, he was floundering, he was kind of floundering all over the place, it was messy, it wasn't just this neat, orderly progression with no setbacks and no failures and sin on his part. Yes, he made, he put his foot in his mouth a lot of times in this situation as well, but through it all, the Lord was teaching him. The Lord was teaching him. I mean, he would say, I wish I'd never been born, I wish I had never been born, but in some of these words, cursed be the day that they said you've got a baby, they told us none of that, I wish that day had never happened. That's a pretty low place to be in, but through it all, think about the patience of the Lord with us and what we're going through in trials, think about how patient the Lord is. He's known us at our lowest points, he's known us at our weakest, our worst groveling moments.

And then Job 23, we read here this, verse 8, behold, I go forward, but he's not there, I go backward, but I cannot perceive him, on the left hand, where he doth work, yet I cannot behold him, he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him. I don't know, I can't see the Lord clearly, I know he's behind it, but I don't know what he's doing, I don't know all the reasons, I just, there's a lot of things I don't know, can't discern about the situation, but there are moments where, as if the light bulb spiritually comes on, he says, but I see this about the trial, I see what God is trying to show me in this way, and one of the things I can see clearly, as he says here in verse number 10, is in verse number 10, but he knoweth the way that I take. He knoweth the way, I don't know the way, but he knows the way. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. When he hath tried me, how long is that going to last? I don't know, but he has a purpose, he has a purpose to purify my faith, and we see in this hope arising in his heart as he's going through this. He's lost a lot of weight, nobody wants to be around him, he stinks, this is not a pretty scene, but when he has finished with me, I will come forth as gold. That's, I don't know if surrender is the right word, but that is a yieldedness to God. He knows what he's doing, I don't know what he's doing exactly, but I do know that when he's finished with what he's doing with me, I will come forth as gold. Those are words of hope. I don't think a human being could face anything much worse than this. You've lost all of your children, was it some 11,500 animals, you've lost your dearest companion on this earth, she doesn't even want to be around you, children not to be around you, servants and maids don't want to be around you, friends are hurling accusations at you, kicking you when you're down, that's a bad place to be, and yet God, God was teaching Job that in the midst of all of this, you need to learn patience waiting on me, I'm in control of this, you need to hope in me, and you need to learn to pray for your friends, you need to learn to even pray for those that take advantage of you while you're down.

Well, may the Lord help us. I know we have some folks, all of us at times go through physical things. None of us know exactly what physical trials we will face before we get off of this planet. I thought, as I had the opportunity to help take care of my wife's maternal grandfather with Parkinson's, you know, for a few years there, just one day out of the week, how many times I thought, this might be me one day, this might be me. And I thought, this is much more humbling for him than it is for me. I think sometimes, just when I'm in a state of weakness, Lord, am I ready if you should take my health away from me and I was to be bedridden? Am I spiritually ready for that? I'm not saying that's gonna happen, but what if it were? It could happen. All the way home, I could be paralyzed, something could happen to us. Well, in a sense, it's true, without him we will fall, we can do nothing, but what the Lord is wanting to teach us, like he was wanting to teach Job, is you can do nothing without me, you need me for every breath, you need me for every thought, you need me to get through this next moment, this next day. Without me, you have no empathy, without me, you have no patience, without me, you have nothing, you have no hope. But as someone has said before, when God puts you on your back, there's nowhere to look but up, right? There's nowhere to look but up, and may God help us to look up, help us to learn when he puts us on our backs, help us not go through that and miss the point, but to learn what it is that he's wanting to teach us.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for these moments that we've had in your word tonight. We pray, Lord, that whether it be a short-term illness or a chronic illness, a chronic pain situation, Lord, that we would judge you to be faithful even in allowing those things to come to our lives. You've given us this example, and we are to consider and to learn from the patience of Job, his example of suffering, and how you taught him through that very difficult situation. Lord, even when we go through the great and heavy trials of life, the purpose of those is to work a far exceeding and eternal weight of glory and to draw us closer to you and turn us heavenward in our thinking, in our minds. Help us as we go this week, Lord, help us every day we have, even if it's a relative degree of health, we have the ability to move about, we have the ability to do anything, Lord, help us to remember you could take it all away from us at any moment. There's nothing special about us that we're better than anybody else that's fallen ill, but Lord, that you would, as you give us the strength of life, help us to, even while we have that strength, Lord, help us to glorify you and honor you with it. Help us not to be proud, we have no reason to be proud, we have no reason to think we're somebody great, because everything, everything we have comes from above, every perfect gift comes from above, nothing we have comes from ourselves. We pray these things, we ask that you bless us now as we sing a final hymn, in Jesus' name, amen.