Revelation Repentance Restoration

In this final sermon from our Job: The Mystery of Suffering series, we explore God's unexpected response to Job’s cries—a revelation not of condemnation, but of connection. Through vivid imagery, ancient wisdom, and modern reflections, we see how Job moves from despair to restoration. Can we be humbled and honored at the same time? What does it mean to suffer yet remain secure in God's love? Join us as we consider how revelation, repentance, and restoration still shape our stories today.

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Read the transcript

Good morning. Today's Bible reading is Job 42:1–17 (page 838 in the red Bibles).

Scripture Reading: Job 42:1–17

Then job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’
My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
After the Lord had said these things to job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I’m angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant job has.”
So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted job’s prayer.
After job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
The Lord blessed the latter part of job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemima, the second Kezia, and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so job died, an old man and full of years.

This is the word of the Lord.

Now. Thanks for those beautiful prayers, Bridget, and the Bible reading, Sarah. My name is Megan. If you haven't met me before. I'm the senior minister here at Deep Creek, and if you haven't been here during this series (and I didn't want to look around to see who had or hadn't), that's okay. It's okay. You don't need to know the entirety of the book of Job to hear from the Lord this morning.

Revelation

Well, two days before I was born, something that has shaped my life was released for the first time. It was the radio play of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A year later, it was published as a book. It's been extremely popular – to the point that these are all the different covers as it's been republished in new editions over and over again over the past 47 years.

It’s a sci-fi satire comedy, and it explores ideas about infinity and leadership and just high jinks around the galaxy. And it connects me always to the book of Job. I'll tell you why.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, someone invents something called the Total Perspective Vortex. The purpose of this invention was to prove to the inventor’s wife that the most important thing for a human being was to never have a sense of proportion about themselves in the midst of the vast universe. So, extrapolating from the atoms in a piece of fairy cake, he invents this device which – when a being is plugged into one end of it – shows them as they truly are in the vast infinitude of all creation.

It says that when you are put into the Vortex, you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation. And somewhere in it, a tiny little marker – a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot – says, “You are here.”

Now, in the Hitchhiker's Guide universe, this invention becomes a torture device, because any being who actually experiences their smallness – their minuscule insignificance in the vastness of all that exists – well, they are exploded. Their brains just cannot handle it; they are destroyed as a person.

The only person in the book who is not destroyed is someone described as having an ego the size of a planet. The only way to combat seeing yourself as you really are – this tiny, infinitely small speck in the universe – is to puff your ego up as big as it can possibly be, so that you know you really have a place.

When it comes to the end of the Book of Job, I've often wondered: is God plugging Job into the Total Perspective Vortex when He comes to respond to Job? Job has been suffering unjustly, and he has these interactions with his friends who say, “This is how God's world works – if you're suffering, you must be a bad person.” And Job is saying, “I'm not! I'm a righteous person. I've always followed God. Why is this happening to me?” He’s calling out to God throughout the book for God to answer his case – to prove that God is a just God. Why is this happening?

When God answers Job, He speaks of the vastness of all creation. Job sees this, and he replies:

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
“Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?”
“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand – things too wonderful for me to know.”

It’s as if God has shown him the entire cosmos – everything in reality – and Job’s part in it: a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot with a little marker saying “You are here.” Will Job be destroyed by this revelation of God? Job’s worries are part of a much grander scheme.

The text speaks of God coming to Job and speaking to him out of a whirlwind. (This is a picture of a place in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, that had a cyclone go through – you can see it's recognizable as a house and a car and an orchard, but it's basically destroyed by the whirlwind that came through.) So when Job replies to God, we're wondering: is this what has happened? God has revealed Himself to Job – will Job be utterly destroyed?

Well, the first thing to say is that there is a difference between the Total Perspective Vortex and God's revelation, because against all odds the revelation has come with connection. Andy Prideaux, who was with us a couple of times through this series, has written a commentary – he's been working on the Book of Job for a long time. This is from one of his articles (published in the Reformed Theological Review in 2011). He said:

“Before such a God, Job can only acknowledge his smallness before the majesty of his Creator who, against all odds, has reached out and spoken to his creature. The Total Perspective Vortex put someone in the midst of a vast universe isolated, insignificant, unconnected – no personality at the heart of reality, just cosmos after cosmos and you. But against all odds, the Creator of the vastness that there is – the being at the heart of reality – has reached out here and connected with Job.”

Now, centuries before I was born, someone else had an experience of the total perspective of the universe. Julian of Norwich, a great saint and mystic in the 14th century, was praying and received a vision from God. I'm going to read to you what she wrote:

He showed a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand (as it seemed to me), and it was as round as any ball. I looked therein with the eye of my understanding and thought, What may this be? (Very normal, if you have a vision from God, to say, “God, what is this about?”) And I was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marveled how it might last, for it seemed to me it might suddenly have fallen into nought (nothing) for its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: it lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God. It lasts and ever will because God loves it, and all things do so by the love of God.

Julian of Norwich had an opportunity to see the total perspective of creation, and in God's vision it was as tiny as a hazelnut, and yet it was not isolated or insignificant. It was loved. It was held together by a Creator who is personally connected to it, who values it, and gives it such dignity that He would hold all things together, even small though they be.

So when God reveals Himself to Job, He doesn't simply reveal Himself as so much higher (you could never understand). He reveals Himself as the One who desires to connect, who also holds all things together with great love and tenderness.

At the start of chapter 38, God had just talked about all the stars in the sky – He holds the storehouses of the hail and all those incredible things that humans have no power over whatsoever. He keeps going:

“Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?”

Big. And then He says:

“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?”

This God who created all that is – the infinite creation – loves and cares for all things and is intimately involved in the lives of all things, even those that have nothing to do with human beings.

And so the first step at the end of this story is revelation. The restoration at the end of the story – the hundreds and thousands of sheep and, and all of that – comes after this first gift of revelation to Job. And he responds:

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. … My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You.”

Against all odds, the Creator has connected and revealed Himself as (what the psalmist says) both powerful and good.

Repentance

Job's response to this is important for us to explore. So the response that he gives to revelation is translated as repentance:

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know... Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

I want us to explore the context of this repentance, which means turning around – changing your mind, going the other way. Is it humility, or is it shame?

Now, in the ancient Near East, honor and shame were basically the foundation for the way humans interacted and societies were formed. Someone who did well or looked good was honored in the community, and someone who had done wrong – who had violated the rules of society – was shamed. We see this today still: the way we speak about people, exclude people (particularly pile-ons on the internet). Canceling is a type of shaming.

So when Job has lost his honored state because everything has been taken from him (including his health), we find him sitting in the dust and ashes of the rubbish heap outside of the town. He's moved from a place of honor into very obvious symbols of shame. And then his friends come and do the pile-on, and they say to him, “You were honored, but actually you need to be ashamed. See how the Lord has punished you? You are not a good person. You are now debased, humiliated. You should be ashamed. Turn back to God and He will restore your honor.”

And so I want to ask the question: when I come to this revelation of God and Job's response, has God done this too? Has God said to this man – who was honored and then living in this place of shame (which he was arguing against) – is God shaming him too?

Now, shame really messes us up. It can be entirely appropriate to feel shame when you have done wrong. But what we do when we feel shame is we hide, or we isolate, we shrink, or we fight. And if the response to God's revelation is to feel deep shame, that seems to me to lead nowhere. Nowhere good. That's what Adam and Eve did in the garden – when God came to them, they hid. “I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid,” says Adam. So is that what's happening here?

Well, it's important that we have the entire chapter, because otherwise we may not know: is God honoring Job or shaming him? We can see from verses 7 onwards that we need to read verse 6 in light of God honoring Job. You can be humbled and honored at the same time. And actually, if there's anything I would want us to leave with from today, it's that you can be humble – you can be humbled and honored at the same time. Is that not the right way for humans to understand themselves? Humbled yet honored.

And that's exactly what's happening here with Job. Because Job is repenting, but it's actually the friends with whom God is angry. “After the Lord had said these things to Job,” He said to Eliphaz the Temanite (he’s the one that kind of kicked it off), “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” Now, Job is responding with repentance of some kind, but he's not being shamed by God.

Actually, we have three options for what is happening when Job responds in this way (these come down to how we interpret some sparse Hebrew sentences – and I don’t claim great knowledge of Hebrew (I learned it but forgot most of it!), but people who do know these things tell me that the word translated “despise” in Job 42:6 doesn’t actually have the reflexive pronoun “myself.” It means refuse or reject. So it could mean “I reject myself”, or it could mean “I reject something else. We’ve interpreted it and added the English myself. And repent is that word that means turn around, change your mind. It can mean repent from being a sinner, or it can mean change your mind about something you’ve been doing – the word repent is even used of God (who’s not sinning) in the Old Testament, when He changes His mind in response to the people’s response to Him. We love that about Him.)

So, what are the three reasonable readings of Job’s repentance here?

1. The first is that Job is saying, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” In other words, God's answer (His revelation) has shown Job his place in the world, and Job turns away from his sin – which at most might be questioning God with pride, or judging God based on a very flat worldview of retributive justice (reward and punishment).

2. Second, it could be Job meaning, “I retract my case.” Not himself, but his call for justice. (You see a lot of courtroom drama in Job, so it's like Job is saying, "I'm retracting or resting my case. I change my mind about my situation in light of God's ways in His world.")

3. Thirdly (Andy Prideaux's preferred reading), Job is saying, “I reject and turn away from these dust and ashes.” Job has been sitting outside the town in the rubbish heap – a place of shame and mourning – but now that he has received God's revelation, he is changing his position. He is consoled by God and is no longer in this place.

(If you were here last week, you'll know I've got a preference for the "law and order" reading of Job – so number two is probably my preference. But actually all of them have some truth backed up in the Book of Job. It is possible for Job to have spoken rightly about God, but also to have said some things that overstepped – and God is big enough to hold that. But it doesn't mean that Job shouldn't repent of those things. That's okay; actually that happens to us all the time. I might speak rightly about God to a point, and yet there will be things that I need to change my mind about, or actually repent of. Even from up here – especially from up here.)

The second interpretation (retracting his case) means Job is now changing his mind about his place in the world and his reading of what's happened to him. His previously flat worldview has been opened up – God is bigger, and His ways are bigger. And I trust His justice and His good purposes. But it is also true that he's now going to turn away from this place of shame and mourning.

Restoration

And so we see that next. So there's restoration happening for Job at each point. But the pattern of revelation, repentance and restoration happens for the friends as well.

So God, in speaking to the friends, basically says: “I am angry with you. You didn't speak rightly. You shamed him, and that was not right. And you attributed to Me things that were not true. So now... now you repent.” See, this is a different kind of repenting – they are actually using the mechanism given in the Old Testament for dealing with sin: sacrifice.

And God says, “Take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job.” (So their repenting is actually contributing to the honoring of this man – they are making up for it; they are participating in restitution at this point. Not just dealing with God, but coming to the person that they've actually wronged.) And so they are honoring Job by enabling Job to act as a high priest for them.

We know that Job had functioned in that way for his family members at the start of the book. God says, “My servant Job will pray for you” – a great honor – “and I will accept his prayer.” (Job has spoken very strong words to God – very strong – and yet God honors him.) He has been in the dust heap; he has suffered and lost; he has looked like someone who should have no place in society. And yet God honors him: “I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You will be restored.”

So the restoration for Job begins with his friends making restitution and honoring him. That reverses his place in society and his sense of honor – but not by forgetting what's happened.

You get nervous in verse 10, because it says, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.” And you're like, But he's just been through this whole thing – it's awful. He lost his children! This is terrible – how do you just turn it around? Is this a fairy tale?

(You had to put that there so that he could go home for this moment.) All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. (His house had been destroyed, but now it is there.) They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

Everything that he had been through was real and acknowledged. Nothing actually had been restored to him at this point in terms of family. In other words, this is an acknowledgment that you can be honoured in the midst of your suffering. He is scarred, and they come and comfort and console him – exactly what should have happened in the first place. And they gave him these symbols of honor.

And now the restoration (the reversal) is completed. “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the former part.” And we see he gets all the sheep and the cows and the things and the sons, and then the excellent daughters. (I'm smiling at Jemima in the foyer now.)

This, too, is a picture of honor. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, it's already an honor to have a son; but to have daughters that are not only beautiful, but – in your abundance and honoring of them – you include them in the inheritance, is a full picture of true and ultimate honor. The whole family, from generation to generation, are held with dignity and respect by God and the community.

Lessons from Job's Story

I want us to finish with four things to learn from this story of Job:

1. The first is that we can suffer with confidence in the good purposes of God. This has been Job's question the entire time, and when God reveals Himself to Job as both powerful and good, it starts to change that confidence – it grows his faith, even though the suffering has not yet been reversed. Ultimately, of course, we have the promise of God that our perseverance will be rewarded. Let me read to you from James chapter 5, beginning at verse 7:

   Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Don't grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

   The writers in the New Testament knew that the picture of Job's restoration was not a promise to every Christian person that things would ultimately turn out for their physical and financial well-being. James himself, who wrote that, was martyred – killed for his faith. They followed the most honored Son of God, who died on a cross before His resurrection. We've just heard of the Christian girls’ camp in Texas, where many girls have died because of flash flooding. And we think of the parents who will have wondered how sending your child to a camp like that could result in such tragedy. But the promise of God is that you can suffer even the most terrible loss (and I am a fraud to speak of it, not having suffered in that way) – but you can suffer with confidence in the good purposes of God and His promise of restoration at the resurrection. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. Job is a picture of the promise of restoration when the Lord Jesus returns, and we can suffer (when that comes) with confidence in the good purposes of a powerful and loving God.

2. And we can be humble without fear of being lost or destroyed. If the answer to the Total Perspective Vortex was to puff up your ego – to get self-esteem as big as you possibly could so that you could have a place in this universe that was not insignificant – well, perhaps we too have wondered if that is the way we ought to live in this world. That if someone says that we are wrong, if God calls us to change our ways, if we need to serve, if people do not recognize us or elect us as something, we will not be destroyed. Actually, we can be humble – truly humble – and sacrifice, knowing that we are held in love. We can be wrong and say that to a friend or family member, and we will not lose ourselves. God holds us. You can be humbled and honored at the same time.

3. And we can do small things with great dignity. We never have to think we are a minuscule dot on a minuscule dot – "you are here," isolated and insignificant. We are held, just as all things are, in love. And it is all small in relation to God. And so the smallest thing that He calls you or me to do has great dignity, as He holds all small things in His power and love.

4. And finally, we can do risky things with freedom and courage. Pain and suffering shrinks your world. It shrinks what you're willing to do; it shrinks what you can do; it shrinks what you're willing to risk because you need as much control as possible. But with a God who says, “I am wild and free and vast and transcendent, and yet I connect with you, and My good purposes cannot be thwarted,” then even in suffering, even in pain, you can have courage and freedom to do risky, big things for Him. Maybe you have found that something has started to shrink your world, and maybe you felt the only way out of it is for you to be elevated or built up in your self-esteem or in your recognition. Job is calling you to let go – to turn away from your self-focused and flat reading and shrunken, painful world – and to allow the great God, full of freedom and full of wildness (like the Holy Spirit that blows and moves wherever it will) to give you courage to try things, to step out, to be wrong, to repent, because no purposes of the good and loving God can be thwarted. Amen.