Coffee With Job. Episode 112
Channel: Jason Blaiklock
Date: 2022-08-05

A Spacious Place. Job 36:13- 21

God is wooing you out of the confines of suffering and distress into a spacious place.  He has lots of choice food for you....in this short passage we look at speaking ill of God, wealth, bribes, and longing for death...

Treat suffering as Discipline - There can be a positive side to it.  Look at ch. 36 v.15 – Gods dealing with us – though painful – are for healing.  Martin Israel “It is one of the fundamental contributions of pain to make people wake up to a deeper quality of existence and to seek evidence for meaning in their lives beyond the immediate sensations that arrest their attention”. One thing that suffering does is reveal our character. Psalm 119 v. 67  - “Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I obey your word”. 
 Please note that this is not saying that all suffering is in and of itself positive etc.  John Flavel “A cross without Christ never did any good to any man”. 

He is concerned with the righteous – with those who are believers who fall into suffering.  We can understand people getting their comeuppance.  But we really struggle when it is good people who suffer for apparently no cause – like Job.  Elihu argues that such suffering is divine discipline.  Turn to Hebrews ch. 12 v.4-13.  The righteous then need to respond to such warnings.  And we need to think about how we respond – look at v. 13 – Philip “obdurate unbelief of some who have lived all their days within the organized life of the church yet who have never come to a vital saving response to the Word of Gods grace”.    There is one thing worse than suffering and that is hardness.   “The wise man rides the wave, the fool is drowned by it”.    Look at v.14.  Male shrine prostitutes – a life of terrible shame.