Introduction: Again and again I return to the Wisdom Literature in Scripture—especially Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Why? Well, those books especially deal the most enduring existential questions: 1) Why is there so much suffering?; 2) What is man’s root problem?; 3) Is there a solution?; 4) If so, what is it?; 5) Why is evil so often permitted and goodness so often punished? There are more questions addressed in the Wisdom Literature, of course, but the aforementioned are some of the main ones.

Context, Context, Context: The Book of Job explores these questions in excruciating detail. This morning as I completed my reading through it yet again, I was again moved to my core. Why? Well, because God answers Job. Beginning in chapter 38 of the Book of Job, God answers. And Job is changed. As are Job’s friends. Job’s fortunes are restored; they are, in fact, doubled (Job 42:10). Job is commended personally by God (Job 42:7).

Teaching: Job repented of his presumptuousness and pride: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further” (Job 40:4-5). Job was, in short, humbled. He came to more fully understand God’s sovereignty and his (Job’s) finitude. Job was made to know his limitations. In other words, humility precedes honor: that was one of the verities Job was taught. Pride is our root problem; we assume a posture of importance before God and God has to remind us that we creatures of dust that he formed. He is the Creator; we are the creatures. When we get that theology into our viscera, it changes us. It humbles us in order that we will look to God.

Chapters 38-42 of Job are some of the most moving closing chapters of any piece of literature one will find. Why? Because they illustrate the utter magnificence of God, God’s wisdom, and God’s sovereignty. God levelled scathing rebukes to the short-sighted theology of Job’s friends. Simultaneously, God gave Job an inestimable gift—namely, himself. God was there . . . through it all. And God was good . . . through it all. And great blessing followed great suffering.

Encouragement: All of us know some measure of suffering. It’s unprofitable to compare our levels of suffering. All of us know sickness, sorrow, death, loss, grief, betrayal, and more. Those are all experiences of the human condition, of fallenness, of a broken world. We all understand that in our bones. But what is also true is that God is still there; he still is sovereign in, through, and over our suffering. In the incarnation, God the Son became one of us in order to take on flesh and suffer in our stead. This is what Job’s story is to drive us to understand. The Suffering Servant, Jesus, came in order to bear the punishment that we prideful creatures deserve. And the response of the wise person is to do as Job did—repent and flee to God. Don’t minimize the beauty and pathos of Job 42:12: “And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.” Let us attend to that wisdom, meditate upon it, and be transformed by it. God blesses his people—but there is always a cross before a crown.