Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

above,"same"product"ultimate"materials"speak,"SABBATHSCHOOL LESSONOctober 3, 1954by Rev. Joseph A. Hill(Lessons based on International Sunday Schoollessons ; the International Bible Lessons forChristian Teaching, copyrighted by the International Council of Relisrious Education.)MAN'S STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTANDLIFELesson Material: Job 1-2; 19-23. (Note:This and next week's lesson are a studyof the Book of Job; for an adequate understanding of the problems raised inthese lessons, the entire book should beread.)Printed Text: Job 1:1-3, 13-15, 17, 20, 22;19:7-10; 23:3-10.Memory Verse: Jeremiah 29:13 "Andye shall seek me, and find me,when yeshall search for me with all your heart."During the fourth quarter we will bestudying selections from the WisdomLiterature of the Bible. The Wisdom"books are Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes. Certain Psalms are sometimes classified with the body of Wisdom Literature. This group of books is so-calledbecause of the frequent occurrence ofthe word hokhmah, translated as "wisdom"in our English Bibles. This wordoccurs over 300 times in the O. T., andmore than half are in Proverbs, Job andEcclesiastes. In general, the termhokhmah means knowing how to attain one's end by the use of the propermeans. This superior knowledge comesprimarily through divine revelation, asit throws light on experience. Job's experience, by itself, and the "wisdom" ofhis three friends, did not bring a trueunderstandingof his great problem. Itwas only when God revealed to Job themeaning of his suffering, and when Jobsaw his experience in the light of divinerevelation (chapters 38-42) that Job hadthe wisdom necessary for a proper understandingof the problem of humansuffering. This is the key to the Bookof Job. Job came to see the inadequacyof merely human wisdom and the necessity of "the wisdom that is fromfor the understanding of life's difficulties. The interpretation of Job's experience, as given by his three friends onlybaffled him. What Job needed was God'sinterpretation. Human reason failed toexplain his suffering. Its meaning became clear to him only through divinerevelation.In Job's day it was regarded as a basicprinciple that the godly man prospers because of his godliness and the wickedman perishes because of his wickedness.It was held that if a person suffered affliction or misfortune,that was evidence that he was a greater sinner, andthat God was punishing him for his sins.This view of human suffering came outof human reason, and it had behind itthe prestige of many centuries.September 15, 1954Job, however, is an exception to thisThe principle did not hold good"rule."in Job's case. In the eyes of God Job wasa "perfect and an upright man," one thatfeared God and turned aside from evil.Yet he suffered great affliction and misfortune. There must be some other explanation for human suffering. It wasthe true explanation of suffering thatJob struggled to find.Job's three friends who came to sympathize with him all attempted to explain Job's experience on the basis ofhuman reason. For them there was noproblem: Job was suffering because ofhis guilt. Job might deny his guilt; hemight plead his own integrity; but Godknew, so they said, that Job had donesome grevious evil, for which God wasafflicting him. Theyall reason on theassumption "that not God but a certain principle of ethics is(Edward J. Young, An Introduction tothe Old Testament, Grand Rapids, Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950, p.315). Prosperity comes to the uprightand adversity to the evil doer. That wasan accepted principle of ethics to whichit was assumed that even God was subject. Centuries later it was still commonly taken for granted. The disciplesasked our Lord concerning the man whowas blind from birth, "Master, who didsin, this man, or his parents, that he was(John 9:2). The answerborn blind?"that Jesus gave to this question is thesame answer that God gave to Job byrevelation.Job's three friends, then, are rationalists. A rationalist is one who subordinates God's Word to human reason.He assumes that man's mind is ultimateand that there is no such thing as divinerevelation. Of course, Job's friends hadto depend on human reason. They hadto work with the "rawhuman experience, for they did not havethe "finishedofof special revelation. God had not yet clearly revealedHis interpretation of human sufferingand adversity. Nevertheless, theirspeeches show that human reason apartfrom divine revelation falls short.Eliphaz, the first who speaks, is ascientist. He tells Job that experiencehas the answer to his problem. Lookaround and see this principle in operation, he says. We know by experiencethat if a man does good he prospers; ifhe does evil he suffers. It is the law ofcause and effect, says Eliphaz. Thisscientific dictum has been hammered outon the anvil of experiment. So Eliphazspeaks out of scientific knowledge: "According as I have seen, they that plowiniquity, and sow trouble, reap the(4:8).Bildad is an historian. He appeals totradition and the past to confirm theancient philosophy of evil. "For, inquire,I pray thee, of the former age, and apply thyself to that which their fathershave searched out: (for we are but ofyesterday, and know nothing, becauseour days upon earth are a shadow:)"Shall they not teach thee, and tell thee,and utter words out of their heart?"(8:8-10). Is Job wiser than the ancients?Shall Job contradict the sages of theages? After all, Job, this is time- testedwisdom. Men have been saying itthroughout all history. It must be true.Zophar is a philosopher. He appeals tohigher wisdom for the solution of theproblem. "O that God would speak, andopen his lips concerning thee, and thathe would show thee the secrets of wisdom!"(11:5,6). Your trouble, Job, is thatyou are not wise enough. If you couldonly know your life as God knows it,your whole philosophy of life would bedifferent. God can see your sins, and ifyou could see them, you would repentright now. Then you would be happy.Zophar seems to have come the nearestto a true answer, because he saw thatman's mind is too limited and that onlyGod can understand man's entire life.Actually, Zophar is as far off the trackas the others, because he too clings tothe dictum of human wisdom that a mansuffers because he has done some evil.Zophar appeals to divine wisdom for thetrue answer, yet he assumes that humanwisdom is also ultimate. He said, "O thatGod wouldbut he did not waitfor God to speak concerning this choicebit of human reasoning about suffering.Zophar would explain it on the basis ofhuman philosophy.God had spoken concerning Job. Hehad told Satan that Job was righteous.Why, then, was Job suffering? Job andhis friends cannot reason it out. Theymust wait for God to speak. The answermust come from God. It must come byrevelation instead of reason.The Book of Job is itself a divine revelation of the meaning of suffering. It waswritten for our benefit, that our faithin God may be strengthened when weface suffering and affliction. It is God'sanswer to us in the hour of trial, because it points us to the cross of Calvary, where the perfect and uprightOne suffered on account of sin, crying toGod out of the midst of His affliction,"My God, my God, why .In the day of grief, the evolutionist'sexplanation of human misery will notbring consolation, and the stoic's apathywill not bring courage. No humanisticphilosophy of life will satisfy the soul ofman in the depths of trouble. Only God'sWord will bring comfort and hope. Because Christ suffered for our sins onthe cross of Calvary, the cross is God'sanswer to human misery.171