SIN > Unmasked: Job’s troubles

The problem of Job: is suffering the result of sin?

Has there been a moment in your life where you’ve been so devastated that you just sunk to the floor on your behind and wished the earth would open up and swallow you?  I sometimes imagine it might be like that when young children watch a parent turn and walk out the door after an horrific parental break-up.  But I’m only guessing – or am I?

In 1983, the Spirit of God messaged me, “I want you to do what you know”.  In 1991, God upped the ante, and drew me to a whole other level of the ‘obedience’ I talked about in my ‘Obedience - but not as you know it’ post.   Thus followed 5 years of heavy seas spiritually; writing, editing, publishing and printing a journal of prophetic ministry for the body of Christ in Australia; sharing and teaching as the Spirit led in various church congregations; being part of a prophetic and intercessory ‘movement’ in various parts.

Across that period, there emerged another ‘movement’ that caught many up in a sometimes wild and euphoric turbulence about “the Toronto blessing”.  I had friends directly caught up in the Australian iteration of the phenomena and many were somewhat critical of my lukewarm reaction to them.  I had my reasons:

One, I couldn’t believe that God would give Australia the ‘Toronto’ blessing – as if we couldn’t possibly qualify for an Australian blessing, led by ordinary Australians (as against non-ordinary North Americans) who were already moving with the Spirit of God in, by and for Australians;

Two, I was keenly suspicious it was a so-called Right-wing political movement dressed up in religious garb – as it subsequently turned out to be, in my view;

Three, I found it both offensive and untrustworthy that the whole thing was parcelled up into seminars and workshops to which people could buy over-priced tickets in order to “catch the fire” – as if it were a contagion.

It has birthed many a Conservative political campaign and given great political clout to leaders of large borderline cultic congregations.  These congregations have huge interest in pursuing and ensuring formulaic commitments among members but teach little about the deep spiritual life of the individual believer’s unique connection to the Father.

They’re happy to insist on submission of wives to husbands and members to ‘pastors’ but baulk at pastors’ submission to apostles, prophets and teachers – or to Jesus for that matter.  In this movement, pastors are CEOs of business-model, tax-free-status organisations; and if you’re not that, you’re not “successful”.  Numbers in attendance is the critical measure of power and success.

At the same time, the movement has submerged, overtaken and consumed many a true disciple of Jesus who happens to see the world – and the ‘church’ – differently.  I was – and remain – one such.  I’m not a CEO of a large congregation of submissive followers, therefore I must be doing something wrong – ‘sinning’ in some way.

Sometime in 1996, as I was waiting on God in my ‘den’, He reminded me of a pivotal event a few years earlier.

While I was participating in the “Leaders looking to Jesus” gathering in Canberra in 1992, God uncovered a small part of Himself to me that left me shaken and with a severe headache for 24 hours after.  I was woken violently from sleep by an unearthly noise in the middle of the night.  There were 9 men in bunks in the dormitory but no one else heard the noise.  God ‘said’ to me: “I’m showing you the bottom corner of my pain”.  As I recounted at the time, the sound was a blood-curdling scream that sounded like a cross between a woman screaming blended with the noise of an F111 streaking overhead.

I responded to God: if that’s the ‘bottom corner’ of your pain, please don’t show me any more – I would die.

In 1996, I saw the pain and anguish of God again at what humans were doing, in God’s name, to His glory and reputation by packaging up spiritual life and marketing it as conferences, seminars and workshops, at which one could ‘catch the fire’.  And I saw God turn and walk out the door, turning his back on this revolting behaviour.  At that, I collapsed to the floor in abject despair and locked myself away in a ‘barn’ – for 10 years as it turned out.

For a very long time, I couldn’t stand to read the bible or listen to it; it made me sick to the stomach.  There was, however, one exception.  The one part of the bible that made sense – glorious, happy sense – was the book of Job.  Yep – you heard right: Job.

Then in 2006, the Spirit of God said to me, “There’s a little bit of morning outside.”  I reluctantly put my eyes above the sill and saw a faint glow, and as I did, a faithful intercessor friend, out of blue, contacted me to say, “you can hope again”.

And in hope, the journey continues.  I’m a very different person; the world is a very different place.  God again turned His eyes of mercy on us.  And the truth of Job had been seared into my spirit.  However, this time around, we really need to catch up to where God is at with all this.  In summary, we’re at Ezekiel 34.

Right now, there are three pivotal truths we need to grasp:

One, the great mass of ‘out-of-church-ers’ are where they need to be and where God wants them to be while He deals with recalcitrant religious and church leaders – Ezekiel 34;

Two, God is carrying out His word from the prophet Ezekiel that “I myself will shepherd my people.”  In place of dead church is living ekklesia – and those two are as different as butterflies and snakes;

Three, “bad things” happening to people in this time and state and condition (or ever, really) are NOT the result of sin as the false shepherds charge, but are an important part of the discipline and growth God is working in His people to bring them to freedom and maturity – both essential in the kingdom of God.

One of the key prophetic words of the last 20 years or so is a new rendition of Revelation 18:4: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.  For her sins are piled up to heaven and God has remembered her iniquities.”  In this passage, “her” is Babylon; and in the prophetic zone, Babylon is the man-made tower attempting to reach God that we commonly call ‘church’.  Many of His people have heard and seen – and been “obedient to the heavenly vision”, and have, in truth, 'come out of her'.

In those ten barn years, God sustained me with the wisdom of Job and the fellowship of a circle of disciples assembling around Jesus at our big table.  This was very much our functioning ekklesia and replacement for church.

The New Testament teaches us that anyone who desires and seeks to live a Godly life will have trouble and be persecuted by the one Job was troubled by.  English bibles call this being Satan; in translation, he is the accuser.  (See 2 Timothy 3:12)

The accuser argued with God that Job only stayed faithful because God protected him; so God withdrew His protection which saw the trouble set in viciously.

Job lost pretty much everything good in his life and came close to death; all the while maintaining his trust in God.  At one point, his wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity?  Curse God and die!”  To which Job replied, “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” ... “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?”  In all this, Job did not sin in what he said, the record notes.

He got lots of advice from so-called comforters or encouragers.  (Don’t we all when things go wrong!)  They told him to stop living in denial and ‘fess up’ to the sin in his life.  (Still happens today!)  In their minds, such terrible things only happened to people who were sinning.  What’s changed?!

Job searched himself repeatedly, but could not come up with some unrighteousness in his life.

Another friend, Elihu, had a different tack.  His advice to Job centres around the sovereignty of God, not around some perceived human sin, as the best explanation for Job’s troubles.

Finally Job decides to silence his advisers, then himself.  He realises how foolish it is to try to explain God without getting that explanation from God directly, so he clamps his hand over his mouth.

At this point, God gets to speak, Job understands, his advisors are humiliated and the accuser is proved wrong ever so powerfully with Job being justified and his life and fortunes restored.

Bad things happen to good people – routinely.   And putting the blame on sin is tantamount to committing the unpardonable sin: attributing a work of God to Satan, the accuser.

As New Testament writer James notes, stresses on our faith and trust serve to make it stronger – like gym work and ‘hard yakka’ build muscle.  And this is a normal part of our disciple life with Jesus.

Jesus himself confronted the same unhelpful story when his disciples watched him heal a man who had been born blind then asked, “who sinned, this man or his parents?”   To which Jesus replied, “neither...this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him.”

Let’s repeat that with emphasis

This happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him!

Yet still today, all around the world, people are persecuted and shunned because of bad things that happen to them on the assumption that they must have sinned or be sinning still.  Many are treated as a curse and pushed out of society.  Ezekiel 34 repeats.

As disciples of Jesus, what happens in our lives may have logical explanations, both good and bad, but it is all so that the works of God can be seen in us.

I encourage you to read Job 40.

Humankind is, at once, so clever and so stupid; smart enough to engineer mighty buildings and ships and bridges; yet so stupid as to not shut up when confronted with the infinity of God.  So ‘smart’ as to imagine that we can explain everything, yet so stupid as to imagine that God’s justice is based on man’s explanations.  Mostly because German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared “Gott ist tot” – God is dead.  The ‘Enlightenment’ had eliminated the possibility of the existence of God.

Sure, you reap what you sow (Galatians 6).  Many things have natural – almost mathematical – consequences.  But it is a grave error in and of itself to assume that besetting troubles are because one has sinned.  We have all sinned!  Why is it then that blessing follows some and cursing follows others?

The critical thing is to steer right away from the sin motif as explanation and follow Job: sit in sackcloth and ashes, place your hand over your mouth, and listen to the wisdom of God your lover and true father.  Let him who has ears to hear hear what the Spirit says.  Even if you are inclined to agree with Nietzsche, it’s worth suspending your unbelief for long enough to hear and see and understand – and be healed.

To me, one of the most astonishingly beautiful passages of scripture is how Job 42 begins:

Then Job replied to the LORD:

I know that You can do all things and that no plan of Yours can be thwarted.  You asked, ‘Who is this who conceals My counsel 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.’  My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You.  Therefore I retract my words, and I repent in dust and ashes.

Amen.