Satan rages against God and against God’s people and plans.  We need to be aware of that.  God is good, but sometimes he allows Satan to strike with all his evil intent within the limitations God places on him, though God will use it for his glory and our good even if we never know what that is.  We need to learn to live by what has been revealed to us not what we can see or work out.  God is sovereign even when we suffer.  And he is more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

What God does next in Job comes as a bit of a surprise.  It’s like God is writing the script for a horror film as he unveils two terrifying beasts and describes in detail their power and menace.
Before we get into the descriptions there are two different ways people interpret these descriptions, some suggest that they’re descriptions of the hippo and the crocodile or of dinosaurs.  But as we read through we’ll see why that doesn’t fit.  Firstly the descriptions don’t quite work, but secondly the emphasis on both is that they were uncatchable by man and yet ancient civilisations did catch and kill the hippo and the crocodile – so what God says, the questions he asks in v1-7 would have no punch, in fact they would fall totally flat!  Thirdly, given that God has just used his creation to move Job to withdraw one protest, how would yet more descriptions of yet more animals move Job to repent?  Fourthly most who go down that path place great emphasis on that fact God created these, but God also created the angels and cherubim and seraphim, being created doesn’t limit them to being animals.  And finally how would a crocodile or hippo or dinosaur challenge Job’s discrediting of God’s justice, how would they help Job understand evil and God’s sovereignty?  It wouldn’t.
Instead I think both these terrifying beasts are representations of evil and chaos at work in the world.  God is teaching Job that there are more forces at work in the world that just what we can see and God.  He hasn’t struck Job these malignant forces have, though God is sovereign over them.  So lets look at these terrifying monsters so we see God in his even greater glory and sovereignty.
Behemoth is described(40v15-24) , he’s a created being, he feeds on grass, but has phenomenal strength(16-18) one of God’s greatest creations, yet God can approach it with his sword.  Nothing scares it, nothing can stop it, it lurks hidden and menacing, and no one can capture it or trap it or tame it.
This is beast so formidable that only God can bring his sword against it.  Only God can defeat it.  And the name is significant.  Whereas in chapter 39 God named the beasts, the lion, raven, ostrich and so on, here it’s a give a plural name, behemoth doesn’t mean ‘a beast’, it means ‘beasts’ or ‘superbeast’.  It’s behemoth not as one animal but as a symbolic terrifying lurking untameable threat.  A supernatural symbol of evil, maybe even of death itself as humans are often described as being like grass.
Even more is said in describing the second beast, menacing descriptions pile up in describing Leviathan.  As Job pictures this creature it would be terrifying.  (41v1-11)Leviathan is uncatchable, untameable, and wild.  Harpoons and spears are useless against it, if you fought it you would never do it again(8), there’s no hope of ever subduing it(9), just looking at it is enough to terrify.  No one is fierce enough, strong enough, powerful enough to rouse it.
(10-11)If no one can stand against this beasts, which belongs to God as everything does because he made it, then how much more can we not take on our, and its, creator?
But God isn’t done with his description.  Leviathan (12-24)is designed for war, it’s strong and moves gracefully, thickly covered with impenetrable armour all over, it has no weaknesses.  And it is equipped to destroy, it’s mouth is ringed with fearsome teeth(14), it shoots fire from its mouth(18-20), when it rises even the mighty are terrified(25).  The sword, sword, spear, dart and javelin are like straw or rotten wood.  Arrows, slingstones, clubs and lance just make it laugh because they can’t touch it, it’s as if it just tickles it(26-29).  It doesn’t have a soft underbelly you can strike at; it is utterly invulnerable and invincible.  The greatest weapons man has made don’t even leave a mark.
And it lives in the chaos of the surging seas, the seas that are so proud and powerful in ch 38, are its home, it stirs them up and makes them seethe churning up a wake behind him.
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We don’t need our why answered we need God.  We don’t need to know what God is doing in our suffering, what good he will bring about, we need God.  We don’t just need him when the suffering ends but as we sit in the dust and ashes.  And we’ve seen in Job that suffering doesn’t separate us from God, God has always been protecting Job and with Job even when it hasn’t felt like it to him.  If we have God then every other loss is worth nothing.  If we can’t say that yet, we ought to pray for God to open our eyes to who he is like he did for Job.

What do you long for when you suffer?  It’s an end to the pain.  It’s what we tell people when they face operations – it’ll hurt for a while but then be better, it’s what we hope for when we take someone to get treatment for an injury – something that will take the pain away and bring healing.  It’s what we tell people when they grieve or suffer a relationship loss – that the pain fades over time.  It’s one of the reasons why I think we find it hard to know how to help those with mental health struggles – because we know that this may be a long term need, with many dark nights of the soul.
And all too often relationship with God is postponed until afterwards.  We’ll think about God when we feel better, are in a better place, have more capacity.  But Job shows us how wrong that is, that we’re missing something.  Job is in a world of agony, he’s lost not one but all of his children, his wealth, he’s covered with sores and hovers near death, wracked with grief and all he has left is a wife who calls him to curse God and die and friends whose comfort only deepens his confusion, questions and isolation.
That’s where Job is as chapter 42 opens.  He hasn’t been restored he‘s still stripped of everything.  Still has nothing.  That makes his words here all the more amazing.  He’s comforted before he is restored – we must see that.  This is comfort in suffering not comfort from or after suffering.  This is the kind of comfort we need, our friends need, in the white hot heat, or pitch black oppressive darkness, of suffering.
God has just drawn Job’s attention to the two chaos monsters we looked at last week.  Behemoth and Leviathan, savage, uncontrollable, forces of evil and chaos that man cannot tame.  But who as created supernatural beings are on God’s leash, under his sovereignty, only permitted to do what God allows and who will ultimately be destroyed by him.
How does Job react?  (1-3)Firstly, Job confesses God’s absolutely sovereignty and might.  Back in ch38v2 God asked Job “Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?”  Now Job confesses that he was wrong, he spoke from what he knew and could see but “I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”
It’s always tempting to think we know what’s going on.  To look at the world and see what we can see and draw conclusions from it.  And so to assume it tells us about God, his love, his actions, his sovereignty or lack of it.  But Job confesses that as he did that he was hopelessly short sighted.  He couldn’t see God’s care of creation, he couldn’t see eternity and God’s plans, and it wasn’t immediately obvious to him that God was sovereign but now he knows.  “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
This morning, are you ready to confess that?  Ready to say to God; Lord I have been wrong.  Lord you are the almighty sovereign ruler who is just and does what’s right, who governs creation wisely and rightly and does things I just cannot comprehend, I cannot see it all, but I know enough of you and your goodness and love and so I will trust in you not in what I see or what I think?
But Job isn’t finished because he’s learned something else(4-5), that he had a limited grasp of God.
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God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.  But God doesn’t immediately stop every threat, every danger, God allows pockets of chaos within his created order. The presence of pain and chaos in the world God has made doesn’t declare God’s absence or call into question his sovereignty or his goodness.  But God cares in the chaos, he rules over it, we can trust in his goodness in it.

From 38v39 throughout chapter 39 God focuses Job’s attention on a wide array of animals.  Asking the same questions to draw Job into seeing God’s care, attention to detail and goodness.  From the lions who God satisfies, and the mountains goats who God sees. The wild donkey who God gave freedom to and provides for.  The wild Ox, the weird and wonderful ostrich, the warhorse with its might and power, to the hawk and eagle who fly because of God’s wisdom.
God created each of these animals, he cares for them, provides for them, watches over them.  Whether they are clean or unclean animals, God delights in them.  There’s a sense of divine wonder in what he’s made in God’s description of all these animals.  God is pleased with what he’s made even post fall.  But notice the focus in the animals God chooses to direct Job’s attention to.  It’s not the funny loving puppy, the tame pony, or the loveable hamster.  These animals are wild and powerful, untameable and dangerous.  This is nature red in tooth and claw.  God is showing Job that in his good world that he’s made there is death and danger.  There is chaos in creation but not out of his control or without purpose or design.
And God is good; providing for and caring for even those creatures than would make Job fearful.  Do you see the implication if God cares even for these things how much more for you, Job?
God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.
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The physical world declares the glory and goodness of God.  Maybe a really practical out working of this is to go out and see, and smell and touch God’s world, to refresh your soul in the sheer expanse of God’s ordering, providing, and caring beyond your suffering.  Not to minimise it, but to remind yourself it is not all pain.  Creation is not unrestrained or disordered chaos.  It is good and God cares.

Suffering shrinks our perspective.  When you stub your toe it feels as if your whole body is crying out in agony.  You’re acutely aware of the throbbing pain so much so that it consumes you.  You aren’t aware of every other system in your body working as they should, its amazing intricacies and order, just the pain in your toe.  Suffering is like that – it shrinks our horizons to just the pain we feel.  It makes it hard to see any good beyond the pain we’re in.  That’s what’s happened to Job and so God in this chapter is opening his eyes to the amazing order and goodness in God’s creation even post fall.  Job wonders is God in control of creation or is it all chaos unchecked, but here God shows him the amazing scale and order in creation.
Every time God asks “Where were you…?”, or “Who marked off…?”, or “Have you ever…?”  Or “Can you…?”  Easy to answer questions.  He’s showing Job that though Job can’t create, mark off, order, bind, or even go to these places or things God has and does.  Every question that invites the answer ‘No, I can’t but you alone LORD can’ is showing Job that his deepest fears about God, those dark whisperings that God isn’t good, isn’t in control, that creation is all chaos and darkness that have begun to wrap their tendrils round his heart aren’t true.
God begins by going back to creation (4-7)and his laying the foundations and marking off the dimensions of the earth, that caused the angels to shout for joy.  The world doesn’t spin off it’s axis or out of its orbit because God ordered it just so.
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The Bibles view of suffering is complex, it takes humility, time, wisdom and prayer to discern what’s happening not simplistic off the shelf applications based on a limited grasp of the Bible’s teaching. In Job we see how complex suffering is, how harmful misapplying theology is and how dangerous a graceless view of God can be. 

Too often our theology of suffering is deficient. We think there are only one or two types of suffering, when in reality the Bible’s teaching on suffering is far more complex. The Bible gives us at least 5 categories of suffering, though there is overlap within and across categories, and none of those categories has hard edges:
Suffering for sin.  Ever since the fall there’ve been consequences for sin.  Both generally because the world is broken and we all suffer along with it, but also specifically where our sinful actions cause us to reap painful consequences.  A godly response to this type of suffering is to examine ourselves, confess our sin and it’s consequences and repent and sin no more, and God joyfully meets us with welcoming grace.
Suffering for spiritual growth.  Another way God uses suffering is to grow us in Christlikeness.  Romans 5v3-5 tells us God can use our suffering to produce perseverance, character and hope.  The Joseph account shows us an arrogant young teen transformed into a godly grace giving God fearer by his suffering.  A godly response to that sort of suffering is to keep on seeking God and fix our eyes on Jesus.
Suffering for Christ’s sake.  The world hates Jesus followers, we see that throughout the Bible, and Jesus warns us we’ll suffer if we follow him.  Persecution is the norm for the disciple of Jesus. A godly response is to keep preaching and living the gospel, doing good and not shrink back even when we are slandered or attacked for doing good (See 1 Peter).
Suffering as sojourn.
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Run to God in prayer so God’s peace – right relationship with him, the joy of being his child, in his care, and it not all depending on you – guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  They must train themselves to think about the things around them that are excellent and praiseworthy not just the brokenness.

So one of the first things we need to do is stop seeing joy and hardship as opposites or adversaries. To stop making our joy circumstantial.
Sometimes in a bible passage there’s a thread that runs through the passage, sometimes there are lots. In Philippians 4 there’s  “in the Lord”. It’s key. They’re to “stand firm in the Lord”, to help Euodia and Syntyche “agree in the Lord”.  And they are to rejoice in the Lord.  All of his instructions are to be worked out in that context, as people who are in the Lord.
It’s a joy that has a certain hope in Jesus return(5) and so knows God is near, that his kingdom is certain and our hope is sure that leads us to gentleness and graciousness with others not a manipulative power tripping leadership.  It’s rejoicing in Jesus that enables us to care for the weak and injured not exploit them.
And it’s rejoicing in the Lord that will lead us to be quick to prayer and praise(6-8) when we feeling anxious, because we know he cares for us and wants us to give him our burdens and anxieties.  And so we run to him because our joy is in him.  And what flows from that is peace, an awareness of and a living out of the reality of a restored relationship and being God’s child and in his sovereign care.  That peace will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Living out of that awareness of who we are stops the shouts of imposter, loser, or failure, that fuel our anxiety and drain us in ministry.
But that’s hard isn’t it.  Paul longs for the Philippians to know peace(7, 9) and he tells them how to practice peace.  Our thoughts often feed our anxieties, they drain our joy, don’t they?  And so he calls on them to think of whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.   He’s not saying ignore the brokenness of the world, ignore the sin you see and the damage it does.  Keep pastoral crises and complexities at a distance so you know peace, that’s professionalism not godliness.  That’s not what he’s teaching them.  But run to God in prayer so God’s peace – right relationship with him, the joy of being his child, in his care, and it not all depending on you – guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  They must train themselves to think about the things around them that are excellent and praiseworthy not just the brokenness.
Are you an optimist or are you from Yorkshire, sorry, I mean a pessimist?  When you think about your church what comes to mind?  Isn’t it often the failures, the families that have left.  The person who showed interest but was dragged back into their old way of life, by drugs, or alcohol, or an unhelpful relationship.  Isn’t it how you are short of musicians, or leaders, or diversity, or money?  Or the spiritual immaturity of the congregations, the lack of growth, the unwise decisions?
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We can so easily find ourselves rejoicing in certain events or happenings rather than in Jesus. We can even find ourselves thinking joy is what will come when everything in ministry is sorted. When we’ve got our eldership team, assistant pastor, and women’s worker all in place and everything’s functioning as it should in the church. But Paul is calling the church to a deeper joy that is grounded in Jesus. That has sunk it’s foundations so deeply into Jesus that circumstances can’t shake it.

If we want to step off the rollercoaster we need to change where we are putting our joy. We need to change how we think about joy. So often we think of joy wrongly.  We think joy cannot co-exist with hardship.  That the two are mortal enemies and only one can exist at any one time.
But Paul writes to the church in Philippi because he wants them to know the very real joy of the gospel as they follow Jesus in every day life.  Not because hardship and struggle are absent, but joy in the midst of hardship, struggle and conflict, because they know whose they are, what they are part of building, who they’re being transformed into the image of, and where ultimately their hope is, and his presence with them now is just a tiny foretaste of what will be.
Philippi is a church birthed with joy in the midst of hardship.  Paul and Silas preach and see conversions by the river in Acts 16 but then are thrown into prison for liberating the spirit oppressed slave, but rather than grumbling and complaining about the injustice of it, or the potential harm it’ll do to the gospel, they sing hymns and pray to God, and after a prison break we see the church grow again as the jailor asks ‘What must I do to be saved?’
A riot and a stint in prison aren’t exactly ideal church planting conditions are they?  They’re not the ideal soil to leave a young church in.  But Paul doesn’t create a siege mentality, he doesn’t make it us against them in this letter.  He rejoices as he prays for them(1v4) “because of their partnership in the gospel”.  And in his continuing ministry with them his aim is to see them make progress and grow in their joy in the faith(1v25).  And his letter is written so they follow Jesus fuelled by joy.
This isn’t just a letter about keeping going.  It’s imperatives are important but it’s not get your head down and slog through, it’s follow Jesus fuelled by the joy of being in him.
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God has placed us where he has put us to serve him there.  No one else can reach your colleagues at work.  No one else can disciple your children like you can.  No one else can live a gospel life out in front of your neighbours like you can.  Don’t mortgage God’s plans for you right here and right now, the places he’s put you to be his light in the darkness, by longing to be somewhere else. But we also need to realise it’s not all on us! Elijah was just one link in the chain.  God graciously shows Elijah some more of the links in the chain of his kingdom purposes.  God has others in Israel who’ve not bowed the knee to Baal. 

So what does God want from his people?  We started with that question and I wonder after look at 1 Kings 19, how that’s changed?
We’ve seen that God is passionate for his people, his glory and his gospel and he wants his people to be passionate for that too.  But we’ve also seen that passion can get out of kilter as it did for Elijah.  That God doesn’t call us to do more than we can.  He cares for his people and provides rest and food and spiritual refreshment for his prophet on the run.  We can’t minister, we can’t serve, just on passion.  God has made us finite, dependent and we need rest, food and closeness to him.  We can only ever serve him out of an experience of and enjoyment of him. I wonder if that idea seems strange to you?  Enjoying God?  What does it mean to enjoy God?
One of the dangers we face in serving in a local church, especially in Yorkshire where less than 1% of the population go to church, where so many are sleepwalking to a lost eternity, is in thinking that we care more about God’s glory than God does.
In v14 God speaks to Elijah again, and repeats his question “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  And Elijah speaks again of Israel’s covenant breaking and his zeal.  His passion for God’s glory is tangible isn’t it?  He’s almost burning up with his passion for God, and yet Israel aren’t, they’re indifferent to their sin, indifferent to God, indifferent to the covenant and their breaking it and are trying to kill Elijah!
So what’s next for Elijah?  A hermit-cy in the cave on Mount Horeb?  A new location – greener spiritual pastures?  Should he be scrolling the FIEC jobs board looking for somewhere where people will actually listen to God and respond?  Where his ministry actually produces fruit?  What is God’s what next for his passionate prophet?
Here’s God’s what next(15-21).  Elijah’s to appoint Hazael King of Aram, Jehu King of Israel, and Elijah as his successor as prophet.  God sees and God has a plan, in fact God had that plan all along, he doesn’t start scribbling it down as Elijah sat under the broom tree or even when things didn’t go to plan post Carmel.  Elijah’s assessment of Israel’s spiritual state isn’t wrong.  And God is going to act; Hazael and Jehu will be God’s means of judgement, God’s discipline of his covenant breaking people, designed to bring them back to him.  And Elisha will be the one who brings God’s word to those people.
Elijah, trust me, I’m not done with my people.  I’m not finished with them.  They may not have turned at Carmel but trust me and my plans and purposes.  But notice something else, Elijah is told to go back to where it’s hard and continue his ministry.  He’s to keep going because Elijah is just one link in the chain of God’s gospel purposes.  Elijah is to prepare the way and pass on the truth to Elisha – whose name means God saves.
Don’t despair, don’t think you care more about the lost God’s glory than God does.  And we mustn’t think that we know better what our role in God’s kingdom should be better than he does.  God has placed us where he has put us to serve him there.  No one else can reach your colleagues at work.  No one else can disciple your children like you can.  No one else can live a gospel life out in front of your neighbours like you can.  Don’t mortgage God’s plans for you right here and right now, the places he’s put you to be his light in the darkness, by longing to be somewhere else.
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How we think of God and what we think he expects of us are hugely important when it comes to how we serve him and especially how we respond when things don’t go the way we thought they would.

I wonder how you answer that question? What’s your instinctive first reaction?
What is God like?  How you answered that first question ‘what does God want from his people’ is largely determined by how you answer that question.  How you think of God.  Is God a headmaster or boss setting challenging, or impossible, targets and demanding results?  Or is he happy go lucky, chilled out and more of a people person than a target setter?  How we think of God will determine what we think God wants from his people.  What he expects of you at work, at home and in the community, at church and as a church.
How we think of God and what we think he expects of us are hugely important when it comes to how we serve him and especially how we respond when things don’t go the way we thought they would, or when things just seem slow.  That’s when we can feel like we just need to work harder to produce.  Or we feel like a failure.  Or think of giving up.
I’m sure you’ve seen quiz shows where they stop the action and ask ‘What happens next’?  Sometimes it’s helpful to do that with the Bible.
In 1 Kings 19 God’s people are ruled by evil King Ahab.  They’ve been led to ignore God and worship Baal and other idols.  God disciplines them by withholding rain for three years as he promised he would, but Israel won’t turn back to God.  They won’t recognise the covenant curse, God calling them back through his discipline.  They won’t repent.  And so God, through Elijah calls for a showdown on Mount Carmel.  In one lonely corner stands Elijah Yahweh’s prophet and in the other stand 450 prophets of Baal.  It’s a battle over who is God, who is worthy of worship and loyalty and love and who isn’t.  It’s last God standing, a display to once and for all stop the people wavering and call them to follow one God.
Each builds an altar, each puts wood on the altar, each puts an offering on the altar, but mustn’t light it.  Instead of matches they’re to pray for a divine conflagration and the God who sends fire from heaven is the real God.
You can feel the tension can’t you.  The priests of Baal go first.  They pray, they plead, they shout, they cut themselves, they dance from morning till evening getting more and more agitated and frenzied as Elijah taunts them asking if Baal is busy, or travelling or if he’s dozed off.  But despite all the activity, all the energy nothing happens.  There’s no fire, not even a fizzle, because Baal isn’t God.
Then it’s Elijah’s turn and you wonder if he’s been out in the sun too long.  He calls the people to him and rebuilds God’s altar, digs a large trench around it, sets up the wood, cutting up the bull but then, in an act of seemingly staggering stupidity he has 12 large jars of water poured all over it.  Then finally, at the time of evening sacrifice, he prays to God asking that God would act “so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
And instantly, whoosh, the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the soil, and all the water in the trench.  And the people fall down and proclaim “The LORD – he is God!  The LORD – he is God!”  Then slaughter the 450 prophets of Baal, and Elijah prays and rain falls for the first time in 3 years.
Here’s the question; what happens next?  Or rather what should happen next?  Everything should change shouldn’t it?  Ahab should lead the nation in national repentance, and chapter 19 should be the story of Ahab and Elijah leading God’s people to live in his land enjoying his rule as his people for his glory. Revival should break out, the nations see Israel basking in the joy of being God’s people and chapters 20 following should document the nations turning to God.
But that’s not what happens.  No sooner has the smell of BBQ drifted away with the rain and any hope of revival is washed away too.  (1 Kings 19v1-2) Ahab runs home and tells Jezebel everything Elijah had done.  And how does she react?  She isn’t repentant, she doesn’t weigh the evidence and think ‘Wow! I was wrong Baal isn’t God, Yahweh is the one true God, I’d better repent.’  No, she ignores all the evidence and sets out to kill Elijah as soon as she can.
That’s really helpful for us to see.  Sometimes we’re naïve, we think repentance is the result of logic and argument – if I can just show someone who Jesus is, build a case and prove he’s the Messiah then they’ll repent and come to faith.  That’s what our evangelistic courses are built on and why when we reach the end of them we’re a bit stuck as to what to do next with people who liked the course but haven’t trusted Jesus yet.  And so we look around, send a few WhatsApps for recommended courses, and invite them on another course.  Or perhaps we think it’s about seeing the miraculous, surely that will bring them to repent.
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I wonder sometimes if we redact Jesus because we aren’t fully convinced of his goodness. If we’re not totally sold on the truth that he has come to bring life and life to that full. We think that there’s an alternative, or an amalgam of Jesus teaching and the world’s, that is somehow better.

When you read through the gospels it’s amazing how often people want to redact Jesus. People want to edit what he says; the Pharisees want him to edit what he says about the Sabbath or the kingdom or the errors in their religion. The disciples want him to stop talking about the cross and his impending death, and everyone wants him to stop talking about the things that make them uncomfortable – his views on marriage, divorce, money and discipleship. They want the miracles working good teacher full of grace who doesn’t make them uncomfortable or challenge them too much on their sin or their societies move away from God’s word.
How does Jesus respond? He keeps teaching with authority. At times he withdraws to pray. He keeps on performing miracles accrediting his teaching as the very word God from the Son of God. He rebukes his disciples. He confronts the Pharisees and Sadducees and confounds their questioning and attempts to discredit him. Jesus won’t be redacted. He won’t change his teaching, he won’t be silenced on the things the people don’t want teaching on or which confronts the respectable sins of the day.
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