1. Cards 59-61
MAN OF PATIENCE
JOB
“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8)
The book of Job reads like a detective story in which the readers know far more than the central characters. The very first chapter answers Job’s main question: he had done nothing to deserve such suffering. We, the readers, know that, but nobody tells Job and his friends.
Unknown to him, Job was involved in a universal test, a contest proposed in heaven but staged on earth. In this extreme test of faith, the best man on earth suffered the worst calamities. Satan had claimed that people like Job love God only because of the good things he provides. Remove those good things, Satan charged, and Job’s faith would melt away along with his riches and health.
God’s reputation was on the line. Would Job continue to trust Him, even while his life was falling apart? This is the crucial question of the book: Would Job turn against God?
Indeed Job proved to Satan and the world that he truly was a MAN OF PATIENCE.

2. MAN OF PATIENCE A. Saul B. David C. Job
Had Job done anything wrong to deserve such suffering he endured?
Unknown to Job he was involved in a universal test, proposed in heaven but staged on earth? True or False
In this extreme test of faith, the best man on earth suffered the worst calamities? True or False
Was Satan claiming that people like Job love God only because of the good things he provides? True or False
Do you love God just because He gives you good things?
God allowed Satan to take away Jobs family, riches and health? True or False
Would Job continue to trust God?
Did Job turn away from God?
Did Job prove to Satan and the world that he truly was a MAN OF PATIENCE?

3. THE BOOK OF JOB SHOWS THE RIGHTEOUS DO SUFFER
It helps to think of this book as a courtroom drama, full of long, eloquent speeches. For most of the book, Job sits in the defendant’s chair listening to his friend’s speeches of strong feelings and expressions. He knows no airtight refutations: what they say about suffering as punishment seems to make sense. Yet he also knows deep in his soul, that they are wrong. He does not deserve the treatment he is getting. There had to be some other explanation.
Like all grieving persons, Job went through emotional cycles. He whined, exploded, and collapsed into self-pity. He agreed with his friends, then shifted positions and contradicted himself. And occasionally he came up with a statement of brilliant hope.
Mainly, Job asked for one thing: an appearance by the one Person who could explain his miserable fate. He wanted to meet God himself, face to face. Eventually Job got his wish; God did show up in person. And when God finally spoke, no one—not Job, nor any of his friends—was prepared for what he had to say.
Sonner or later we all find ourselves in a position somewhat like Job’s Our world seems to crumble apart. Nothing makes sense any more. God seems distant and silent.
At such moments of great crisis, each one of us is put on trial. In a sense we become actors in a contest like the one Job went through. This book records every step in that process with unflinching honesty. Job’s life stands as an example to every person who must go through great suffering.

4. THE BOOK OF JOB SHOWS A. That we will never have any problems
B. That The Righteous Do Suffer
C. We should all be Patient
God told the devil: “Have you c_____________my servant J_____________? There is no one on e____________
like h____________; he is b______________and u____________, a m_______ who fears G__________
and shuns e__________.”
Job’s friends blamed him for his suffering, saying that Job must have committed some great crime for which God
was punishing him, were they right?
Did Job feel sorry for himself?
What one thing did Job ask for from God?
Did God grant his wish?
Does Job’s life stand as an example to every person who must go through great suffering?

5. EVENTS IN JOB
How could it happen? All at once the world came crashing down on a single innocent man, a man, named Job. It was the ultimate in unfairness.
First, raiders stole his belongings and slaughtered his servants. Then fire from the sky burned up his sheep, and a mighty wind destroyed his house and killed his sons and daughters.
Finally, Job came down with a horrible, painful disease. What did I do to deserve such suffering?, he wailed.
Continued on next slide

6. EVENTS IN JOB
Job’s wife mocked him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Cruse God and die” (2:9) His friends were even crueler: they argued that Job was being punished, that he fully deserved the tragedies crashing into his life. For his part, Job struggled to do what seemed impossible: to keep on believing in a loving, fair God even though all the evidence pointed against such a God.
Mainly, Job asked for one thing: an appearance by the one Person who could explain his miserable fate. He wanted to meet God himself, face to face. Eventually Job got his wish; God did show up in person. And when God finally spoke, no one—not Job, nor any of his friends—was prepared for what he had to say.
At last Job got his wish. God answered Job with a speech often quoted for it’s majesty and beauty. In a touch of irony, God made his entrance just as Elihu was explaining why Job could not expect a direct answer from him.
Job had saved up a long list of questions, but it was God who asked the questions, not Job. “Brace yourself like a man,” he began. “I will question you, and you shall answer me.” (40:7) In reality God then doesn’t explain, He explodes. He asks Job who he thinks he is anyway. Try to explain the kind of things Job wants explained would be like trying to explain Einstein to a baby. God did not need Job’s or anyone else’s advice on how to run the world.
God’s reply resembled a nature lesson more than an explanation of the problem of suffering. He pointed out, one by one, all the creations that gave him greatest pride. In short, God asked Job, “Do you want to try running the universe for a while? Go ahead, try designing an ostrich, or a mountain goat, or even a snowflake.”
Job answers the Lord in 42:1-6 and confesses: “I am ashamed of myself. I am so sorry.”
The book of Job ends on a note of surprise. Job’s friends, who had spouted all the right religious devotions and clichés, ask for forgiveness. Job, who had raged and cried out, is given twice as much as he ever had before. “And so he died, old and full of years” (42:17)

7. EVENTS IN JOB A. Job’s Loss B. Debate between Job and his friends
C. God answers Job
D. All the above
What was the first things that happened to Job?
Then what did the fire do?
Then what did the wind do?
Then what happened to Job himself
What was Job’s wife response to all of this?
What did Job’s friends tell him?
When God answered Job’s request to see Him face to face was he prepared for what God had to say?
Job had saved up a long list of questions, but who was it that ask all the questions?
Did God need Job’s or anyone else’s advice on how to run the world?
How did Job end up answering the Lord?
Did Job’s friends also ask for forgiveness?
What happened to Job in the end?