The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable, Part 2

Bill Meyer: Have you ever been on the receiving end of help that only made things worse? A well-meaning friend whose words cut deeper than the wound itself? Job knew that pain all too well. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll shows us how Job's friends, while he was suffering, buried him with shame. And we'll see how Job responded. There's a lesson here for anyone who's ever tried to comfort a hurting soul. And for anyone who's been hurt by the comforting. It all points us back to God. Chuck titled his message, "The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable."
Chuck Swindoll: There are times my heart truly goes out to Job. This is one of those times. I doubt that anyone has ever called you a maggot or a worm. I think Bildad had absolutely no use, no use for Job. Get out of my life. His final speech ends with this kind of major put-down. There are a lot of sideline lessons to learn from our studies and one of them is: whenever you have the opportunity to minister to whomever, putting them down never helps. Never. But that's what these men seem to be so good at. So is it any wonder that Job begins with a series of sarcastic verbal slams in return? "What a help you are to the weak! How you have saved the arm without strength." Seems like the Hebrew is saying, how you have saved with your arm the one without strength. That seems to be the idea. "What counsel you have given to one without wisdom. What helpful insight you have abundantly provided! My, my, my. To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit was expressed through you? Whoa. You have really got the corner on truth, Bildad." What Job lacked in tact, he made up for in total honesty. By the way, sores will do that to you. There's something about pain and the continuation of it that finally removes most of the tact and just gets down to the red, raw facts of life. Even those who are stubborn and rebellious, when they have a lot of pain, there's then a lot of reality. There's no tact here with Job. When you're covered with sores and you're running a high fever and you haven't gotten the sleep you need and you haven't gotten the food you should have and your body is emaciated, you're candid. "A lot of help you've been, Bildad." You know, I'm just going to be painfully honest here and say, sometimes we who give wrong counsel need that kind of response. We who have these pious words for those who are going through something that we can't even imagine, we who have those big answers and long-drawn-out, sometime put-downs and shame-based comments for things they're going through, we need to be told off. Bildad deserved that kind of response. Remember that little prayer I gave you a couple of times ago? "Lord, help me today not to add to anybody's burden." Remember that? I hope you wrote that down. I've got that on my desk and I read it now every morning. Lord, help me not to add to anybody's burden. Help me to speak truth. And where I can, help me to comfort. And where I don't know, help me to say it. And where I feel badly for someone, help me to say that. But help me not to add to their burden. If they're going to hell and back through their experience, I don't need to assist them along the way in any put-down. I need to be a comfort to them. Bildad didn't learn that principle. Now what's interesting is that Job becomes the teacher. Instead of Bildad teaching Job, Job decides, since you don't have any answers, let me tell you about this God who hasn't revealed all the whys and wherefores in his activities. Beginning at verse five over to verse 13, Job takes Bildad through the paces. And here is what we would call a fascinating cosmological explanation. He starts with the departed spirits of the dead and he goes all the way to the top of the universe. And in a simple, general manner, Job says to Bildad, God is in control of every bit of it. He knows about it, he understands it, and he is responsible in the midst of all of it. None of it is a surprise to the living God. He begins with verse five, the departed spirits. He uses three words to describe their location: waters, Sheol, and Abaddon. The departed spirits tremble under the waters and their inhabitants. Naked is Sheol before him. Sheol is the place of the departed dead and Abaddon has no covering. It's a synonym for Sheol. This is a resplendent mosaic of the living God's superiority over all. He's sovereign, he is sovereign even over the departed spirits covered by the waters in the place of Sheol and Abaddon. Now look at where he moves. "He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing." Is this amazing? This is an ancient piece of literature. But it's pure truth. He hasn't been contaminated by the evolutionary thinking of the scholars of the 20th century or 21st century. He just believes by faith that when God put it together, he stretched it out over empty space and he hangs the earth on nothing. That's no problem with God. He made stuff out of nothing. He made nothing. I mean, it's all his. He put it all together. *Bereshit Bara Elohim Et Hashamayim Ve'et Ha'aretz* is the way they say it in the Hebrew as you begin, in the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. I mean, the theories today that we're told about creation, it takes more faith to believe them than the fiat word of God. God simply states it. Let it be and it becomes and he hangs it on nothing. This is beautiful. Job is beginning to teach Bildad whether Bildad's listening or not, who knows? But the beautiful thing is that Job has a relationship with God that Bildad never heard of. And in that relationship, he relies on God for whatever he needs. Some time ago, a teacher sent me a very interesting piece written by a 21st-century teacher to the school administration to describe the dilemma of being a teacher in this world in which we live. "Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning? Not only that, I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and T-shirt messages? I'm to fight the war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for guns, and raise their self-esteem? I am to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play? How and where to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, how to apply for a job? I'm to check their heads occasionally for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of potential antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and oh yeah, always make sure that I give the girls in my class 50% of my attention? I'm required by my contract to be working on my own time, summer and evenings at my own expense, toward advanced certification and a master's degree? And after school, I'm to attend committee and faculty meetings and participate in staff development training to maintain my employment status? I'm to be a paragon of virtue, larger than life such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority? I'm to pledge allegiance to supporting family values, a return to the basics, and to my current administration? I'm to incorporate technology into the learning and monitor all websites while providing a personal relationship with each student? I'm to decide who might be potentially dangerous and are liable to commit crimes in school or who is possibly being abused, and I can be sent to jail for not mentioning these suspicions? I'm to make sure all students pass the state and federally mandated testing in all classes whether or not they attend school on a regular basis or complete any of the work assigned? Plus, I'm expected to make sure that all of the students with handicaps are guaranteed a free and equal education regardless of their mental or physical handicap? I'm to communicate frequently with each student's parent by letter, phone, newsletter, and grade card? I'm to do all of this with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a 45-minute or less plan time, and a big smile, all on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps in many states? Is that all? And you want me to do all of this and expect me not to pray?" You want me, Bildad, to do all of these things and you don't even help me turn again to the living God? Let me tell you about this God. Let me tell you about the reason I can keep going and not give up and not take my own life. Talk to me about him and talk truth and don't be afraid to say those tough words, "I don't know." So since you won't say them, let me explain to you the vastness, the incredible incomprehensibility of his nature, the inscrutable power of his person, controlling those who have gone beyond to death as well as still being involved from the creation of this earth, verse eight, wrapping the waters in his clouds and the cloud does not burst under them. He obscures the face of the full moon and spreads his cloud over it. He's inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters. Perhaps that has a reference to the rainbow, perhaps it has a reference to the curvature of the earth in the vastness of the seas, maybe it was an ancient reference to the creation of this canopy about this earth. At the boundary of light and darkness, the pillars of heaven tremble and are amazed at his rebuke. He quieted the seas with his power. Only he can do that. By his understanding, he shattered Rahab. He mentions later the piercing of the fleeing serpent. Those are poetic pictures of evil. He is in charge of all of that. He has all of that under his control. By his breath, the heavens are cleared. Behold, says Job when he gets to verse 14. I love this 14th verse. As magnificent as all of these things are, what I have shared represents only the fringes. Isn't that a great word? The fringes. The edges of his way. They are merely quiet whispers of his voice. They're just the hushed tones of what he's revealed. "How faint a word we hear of him! But his mighty thunder, who can understand?" Another way of saying is "Who can withstand?" We who live in Texas hear a little of thunder. Every once in a while there'll come a real frog strangler and just before that rain comes there is a lightning through the skies, man it's worth staying up for it late. You know the whole neighborhood lights up. Wow, look at that! And then you go and you're ready for this. Ka-boom! That's the thunder you can hear. But if that's just his whisper, if he ever let it loose, we'd all be deaf. We'd fall flat. That's Job's concept of the living God. Bildad, tell me that. I mean, when you put the vastness of this universe in this kind of setting, in the stellar spaces and the natural elements and the life below on and above the seas and on the earth with the reptiles and the fish and the fowls and the natural elements about us, and to think that he, in all of the galaxies, around all of this universe, he comes and finds that little green pea called earth and locates us and knows even the hairs on our head. It is high. I cannot attain to it. What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you visit him? I need that when the sores on my body are running with pus and the fever won't go down. Job ends where Bildad should have begun. Who can understand? Which reminds me of the three most unusual English words you will ever hear adults say. "I don't know." Do it again. "I don't know." Tomorrow morning before you shave, guys, as you look at what we have to look at every day, practice the words. "I don't know." So that when someone at the office brings up an issue that is beyond you, say "I don't know." When they talk about how God is a good God and they've listened to the televangelist who told them how everything works out great, just in the next 30 minutes if you give enough, it'll work out great and it's amazing how all of it's going to be a downhill slide, just trust him, after all he's got this wonderful plan and you'll be able to enjoy it, just give to us, 1-800, just call the number. You remind them you don't know. Say it, say it again, say it again, say it again. You know the living God by faith, but you don't know his ways. His ways are higher than your ways. His thoughts are greater than your thoughts. You don't have to know. If you say you know, you're phony. Most brilliant men you can study under, I've had the privilege in theology to study under, and every one of them knew how to say those words, "I don't know." Which began to teach me how incredibly vast is my Heavenly Father and that he is trustworthy. And I can believe him, I can believe in him without being able to explain his ways. And I can put my hand on the arm of the friend I'm with at the hospital and say, not only do I not know, no one knows. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable are his ways! Doesn't mean he's not in control. It just means he isn't obligated to explain himself. Why did my dog die? Why did my dog get hit in the street when my neighbor's dog is 20 years old? Why is it that this tragedy happened at this time when in fact these countries, a tragedy would wake them up maybe? What is it about our family that goes through when that family... I don't know. In the final analysis, he knows and he does all things well. I am the clay, he is the potter. I am the disciple, he is the Lord. I am the sheep, he is the shepherd. That means I am to be humble and trusting and available, not making demands, willing to adjust, to be submissive, to listen, to learn, to adapt to his leading wherever it may go, whether I'm comfortable, happy or not. That is obedience. Job by now is beginning to see it and even at the end of his brief explanation says who can understand? It's a good time to return to my opening statement. The study of Job is essentially the study of God. It's essentially a study of God. I return again to Tozer. Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God. And the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. The Christian conception of God current in these years is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to moral calamity. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God. The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God. In all her prayers and labors, this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise. Train yourself to think theologically. Make it a determined purpose to think God's thoughts as you practice, "I don't know." That's where faith steps in. What I cannot prove and his word states, I believe. Even if I cannot explain it or in human terms defend it, I believe it. Let's bow our heads together. You've been very gracious to sit and to listen. Not an easy sermon to preach and an even harder one to hear. From the profound life of a remarkable, suffering man, there emerges the story of life today. A life that includes tragedies, heartaches, heartbreaks. The permissive will of God allowing events of evil to transpire as evil men and women plan against good things and even innocent lives like children. You don't have to understand. But having come to an end of your own ability to explain, you must accept at that point faith somewhere fits into this equation. And I trust him whose ways are higher than mine. Though mysterious, I still believe he is good. Though inscrutable, I still believe God has integrity. Though the story doesn't end happily ever after, I still believe he is a God of grace. The cross looms large on the horizon as you look toward the future. And you must, each one of us must come to terms with it. Its message is a message of obedience where the Son of God took the sins of the world and owned them. "Who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree," the sacred text says. Your way to God, not an understanding all about him but having a relationship with him, must take you through the cross where you acknowledge that your sins were paid for as well, and you trust him to take you where you cannot go on your own, to a place of forgiveness in this life and to eternal heaven in the next one. Believe today. Trust him now. Behold, our Father, we have touched only the fringes of your ways. We have heard only a faint word. Were you to reveal it all, who could possibly take it in? Who could survive? We hold you in awesome adoration. We sit before you in silent respect. Forgive us for filling spaces with meaningless words and attempting to justify your hand when you need no defender. I pray that you will help us as our paths cross the Jobs of our lives or as we endure them ourselves. To be more gracious and less dogmatic. To be quicker to say we're here but we can't explain all the whys. May we remember, Lord, that you are the Father, we are the children. You are the Lord, we are the servants. As we're dismissed today, our Father, from this time of worship, give us comfort in knowing that he who is inexplicable and inscrutable and unfathomable loves us, cares for us, and of all things has provided a way to know him. Thank you for Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. And becoming a man, he identified with our ways. Thank you for the path you have opened to heaven by faith. We walk it confident in Christ and not of ourselves. In his matchless name we pray, everyone said, Amen.
Bill Meyer: When someone we love is hurting, the kindest words are often the simplest. "I'm here, but I don't understand this any more than you do." We don't have to defend God. We don't have to explain the mystery. Our role is to point one another to the one who loves us. This is Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, "The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable." As much as we might try, we can't dismiss the raw authenticity of Job's story. It's not just a distant parable, something tragic that happened to someone else somewhere else a long, long time ago. We know it's relevant because we've been there. We've been confused by God, too. We've been stymied by his ways. But here's what Chuck Swindoll wants you to know. The God who met Job in the most confusing season of his life is the same God who is present in yours. That's not only the testimony of Job, it's the message in a classic book that Chuck wrote. "Finding God When the World's On Fire" isn't a book for people with all the answers, it's a book for the rest of us. And we'd like to send you a copy today. It's our gift to you when you include a contribution to support the ministry of Insight for Living. Call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/donate. And then while you have a little extra time this weekend, we invite you to sit down and watch a ravening conversation between Chuck Swindoll and media personality Dave Ramsey. The two men go farther back than most of us realize. Dave first encountered Chuck's Bible teaching decades ago through Insight for Living. In this interview, Dave and Chuck talk about stewardship, debt-free living, and the thread of redemption that God weaves through every season, even the ones we're sure will ruin us. To hear and see the interview between Chuck and Dave Ramsey, stop by insight.org/conversations. That's insight.org/conversations. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll continues his comprehensive study on the life of Job, Monday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, "The Futility of Unscrewing the Inscrutable," was copyrighted in 2002, 2004, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.