SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON PLAN - 6-13-2021 - JOB 14:1-14 - HOPE DEFINED
LAST WEEK: In Job 1:8-22, we covered the godly character of Job and his reaction to the four disastrous trials that God allowed Satan to inflict on him. From that lesson, we learned three vital truths: (1) That Satan cannot attack a believer unless God allows it. Like Job, the various trials that we Christians will encounter in life are designed to test and strengthen our faith. (2) That bad things-suffering-can happen to good people for divine reasons we can't begin to comprehend. When we see this happen, we must constantly remind ourselves to persevere, keeping our faith and trust in an Almighty God, who misses nothing and ultimately controls the outcome of everything. (3) God deserves our faith, trust, and worship on the basis of His character alone (as opposed to the extent of the blessings we receive). Severe trials, like those suffered by Job, have the tendency to cause us to do one of two things: We can allow them to drive us away from God out of anger and bitterness or we can draw closer and seek refuge in Him. It's all about faith and trust.
THIS WEEK: We fast-forward to Chapter 14. In Chap. 2, in a repeat of the earlier dialogue between God and Satan (Job 1:8-12), God allows Satan to attack Job's person and inflict on him "sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head" (Job 2:3-7). Afterward, when Job's wife demanded that he renounce his character and curse God, Job remained firm and said: "You are speaking as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we actually accept good from God but not accept adversity?" Despite all this, Job did not sin with his lips. (Job. 2:9-10). Chapters 2:11 to 13:28 mark a shift in the writing form from prose to poetry and start the first cycle of Job's dialogues with his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who are supposedly trying to "comfort" Job in this time of misery. The pattern throughout these chapters is that Job's friends, who are convinced that God prospers righteous and punishes the guilty, all quite wrongly assume that Job's suffering is the result of some hidden sin. Therefore, each man urges Job to repent so that God would have mercy on him. In reply to their view, however, Job refuses to acknowledge that he has sinned and maintains that he is innocent. While its' true that suffering can be the result of sins, Job's three friends oversimplified the truth by taking the view that all suffering must be punishment for wrongdoing, which was not at all the case with Job. Today, as we come into Chapter 14, we find Job ruminating on man's mortality-the unavoidable fact that our lives are so short. So, let's hear what Job has to say to us about it.
Read Job 14:1-2 - MAN IS SHORT-LIVED AND FULL OF TURMOIL
1 "Man, who is born of woman, Is short-lived and full of turmoil. 2 Like a flower he comes out and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain.
v. 1: ""Man, who is born of woman, Is short-lived and full of turmoil" - Here, Job not only concluded that human life is very short, but is also filled with a lot of trouble. And we know from last week's study that Job is certainly experiencing both of these realities.
v. 2: "Like a flower he comes out and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain." - Job compares human life to a flower, which blooms quickly, only to be cut down or rapidly wither away-gone almost as quickly as it appeared. Using another metaphor, job speaks of life being like a shadow-something so temporary that once the light shifts or is removed, it's gone, just like that! Thus, human life has a similar pattern, reaches full bloom becomes sharp and distinct but all too soon, it ceases to exist. (Note: Job isn't making a theological argument here against the possibility of resurrection but is simply referring to the utter certainty of earthly mortality.)
APPLICATION 1: Human life on earth is temporary. The shortness of human life and the inevitable trials-family, work, finances, health, etc.-are a reality that we all live with. Job poetically compared human life with a flower which blooms quickly only to wither away just as fast or with a shadow that that projects sharply only to vanish as soon as the light shifts.
Read Job 14:3-6 - HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED
3 You also open Your eyes on him And bring him into judgment with Yourself. 4 Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one! 5 Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And You have set his limits so that he cannot pass. 6 Look away from him so that he may rest, Until he fulfills his day like a hired worker.
v. 3: "You also open Your eyes on him And bring him into judgment with Yourself" - Here, Job pictures God fixing his all-seeing eyes on him, a withering and wretched creature, and noticing the difference between them. God is all powerful and we are weak. God is holy and we are not. God is our judge and knows all our deeds. Thus, we stand accused before Him and are guilty. But note that Job isn't claiming special revelation from God but is just saying this is how he sees it right now.
v. 4: "Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one!" - I wouldn't go as far as to say that Job in whining, but he seems to be saying that God is demanding something that he's incapable of doing or be, in other words, hopeless. If God demands (remember that Job is unaware of Satan's involvement) perfect cleanness (i.e., completely sinless) before He would remove Job's afflictions, then Job was aware that he could never meet that standard ("blameless and upright" isn't the same as perfect).
v. 5: "Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And You have set his limits so that he cannot pass." - The term "days are determined" means they are known and fixed by God-a fact-and known only to God. The clock starts running the day we are conceived.
v. 6: "Look away from him so that he may rest, Until he fulfills his day like a hired worker" - Given the fact that he'd just lost everything, including his health, Job probably assumed he didn't have much longer to live. His words simply express the plea that God will leave him alone-send no more trials-until this short life is over!
APPLICATION 2: No matter how hard we try, we can never measure-up to God's perfection. Job understood the difference between himself and God: (1) God is all-powerful and we are weak; (2) God is holy and we are not; (3) God is our judge and know all our deeds. Thus, we stand accused before Him and are guilty.
Read Job 14: 7-12 - HOPE FOR A TREE
7 "For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail. 8 Though its roots grow old in the ground, And its stump dies in the dry soil, 9 At the scent of water it will flourish And produce sprigs like a plant. 10 But a man dies and lies prostrate. A person passes away, and where is he? 11 As water evaporates from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dried up, 12 So a man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens no longer exist, He will not awake nor be woken from his sleep.
vv. 7-9: "For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail. 8 Though its roots grow old in the ground, And its stump dies in the dry soil, 9 At the scent of water it will flourish And produce sprigs like a plant." - Now we see Job express grief over the limits of man's mortality compared to that of a tree. If a tree is cut down to a bare stump, and even if the stump is dead, it can still produce new growth that, given time, can match or even exceed the original tree it replaces. All it needs to start is some water.
v. 10: "But a man dies and lies prostrate. A person passes away, and where is he?" - Here we see where Job is going with this tree discussion: In contrast to the dead tree, the man has no hope of coming back in this life. In the mortal sense, job speaks true: that a dead body is not coming back to life. The answer to Job's question "where is he?" is this: He is absent from the body.
Note: The truth of what Job says must be evaluated according the rest of the Bible. We need to remember that Job didn't have the benefit of any written Scripture, let alone our NT insight and understanding of the resurrection and the life. As saved Christians, we know that we will receive new, glorified bodies at the resurrection.
vv. 11-12: "As water evaporates from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dried up, 12 So a man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens no longer exist, He will not awake nor be woken from his sleep" - Job compares the fate of man to an evaporating body of water: it continues until no water remains. According to Job, this is how man's life works. We just dry up. We lie down and don't rise again. This is Job's way of saying that he saw himself as being in the process of drying up and returning to the soil of the earth.
APPLICATION 3: Unlike trees, man has no hope of coming back in this life. Job understood and accepted this truth. Job compared his life to a slowly evaporating pool of water that would eventually dry and return to the soil of the earth.
Read Job 14:13-14 - IF A MAN DIES, WILL HE LIVE AGAIN?
13 "Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You, That You would set a limit for me and remember me! 14 If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait Until my relief comes.
v. 13: ""Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, That You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You, That You would set a limit for me and remember me! - First off, we need to recognize that the statements in this verse contain impressions that Job himself didn't understand. Job thought that God had brought these trials on him and was for some reason angry at him, when, in truth, God was pleased with him. And Job really didn't know anything about the condition of man after death, but he either supposed (or hoped) that it would be something better than his current circumstances. The word "Sheol" in Hebrew means the place of the dead or a grave, and Job appears to see it as a place of rest or sleep, which, to him represented a vast improvement over the misery he was then suffering. Many commentators suggest that what Job is actually longing for is a temporary death that would somehow bypass God's wrath until such time when God was no longer angry with him-in other words, Job was inventing a fantasy as a way of escape, but God had other plans for him.
v. 14: If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my struggle I will wait Until my relief comes. In this verse, Job comes full circle to the realization that temporary death is impossible. That being the case, he resigns himself to continue suffering until something-anything-changes in his life, if it ever does. In the modern vernacular, we would say that Job has resolved to "tough it out" at this point, and it is a ray of hope. In Job's context, the answer to the question "If a man dies, will he live again?," is no, not in this life. So, Job is now determined to wait in constant expectation of death, and in the meantime endure his suffering with the hope that it is all in God's hands. While Job doesn't understand what's happening or how it will ultimately turn out, he's made a decision to place all of his faith, trust, and hope in the providence of God for the outcome.
APPLICATION 4: Like Job, we need to place all of our faith, trust, and hope in God for the outcome. Although, Job didn't understand why he was undergoing so much suffering and was unsure of what would happen when he dies, he decided to endure his suffering and put all of his faith, trust, and hope in God for the outcome.
OBSERVATIONS: As NT Christians, we are greatly blessed in having the answers to the questions that Job pondered out of his misery:
First, in v. 4, Job asked, "Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one! (referring to man). His question came from a heart that recognized that humans can never achieve God's standard of holiness or become justified in His sight, since God is perfect and we are not. Therefore, a great gulf exists between man and God, caused by sin. But the ultimate answer to Job's anguished question is found through salvation in he person of Jesus Christ, who has paid the penalty for our sin and has exchanged it for His righteousness, thereby making us acceptable in God's sight (Heb. 10:14; Col. 1:21-23; 2 Cor. 5:17).
Second, in v. 10, Job asked, "But a man dies and lies prostrate. A person passes away, and where is he?," which is another question about eternity and life and death that is answered only by salvation in Jesus Christ. With Christ, the answer to "where is he?," is eternal life in heaven. But without Christ, the answer is an eternity in the "outer darkness" where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 25:30).
Third, in v. 14, Job asked, "If a man dies, will he live again?" Once more, the answer is found in salvation through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. We do in fact live again if we are in Him. As Paul out it, "But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: "DEATH HAS BEEN SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 WHERE, O DEATH, IS YOUR VICTORY? WHERE, O DEATH, IS YOUR STING?" (1 Cor. 15:54-55, quoting Hosea 13:14).
PRAYER: LORD GOD, we thank You for allowing us to gather together again to study and learn from the truth of Your Word. We thank you that we live in this great nation in a time of peace and prosperity, and I pray that You will continue to preserve it. We thank you that as a body of believers in Jesus Christ, we have this good church where we can You worship freely and share the Good News of Jesus Christ. We thank You, Dear God, that we are in the process getting back to normal now and resuming our regular activities as a church. As we move forward, I pray, Lord, that you will preserve the health and well-being and all who come here to worship, and I hope to see many new faces, as well as many familiar faces who have been unable attend church for reasons of health. Lord, I pray that everyone who heard the lesson this morning from Job Chapter 14 came away with a greater appreciation how privileged we are to have complete Bibles: That its wealth of information about You answers all the hard questions that poor Job asked in today's text. Lord, if we can learn one thing from Job's example, I pray that every person here, like Job, will completely put all of his or her faith, hope, and trust in You for the outcome for any trials we're facing now or may be facing in the future. In the powerful name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, I ask these things, AMEN.
