Sermon(Job 39:13-18): Is the God unjust?

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025853121

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Scripture reading: Job 39:13-18

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>> 13 The wings of the ostrich wave proudly; but are they the pinions and plumage of love? 14 For she leaves her eggs to the earth, and lets them be warmed on the ground, 15 forgetting that a foot may crush them, and that the wild beast may trample them. 16 She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear; 17 because God has made her forget wisdom, and given her no share in understanding. 18 When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. <<

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When a woman gives birth to a baby, she should wrap it in clothes for warmth, wipe its shit when it poops, and give the breast to it when it cries for hunger. If she does not, the child will die. So if you give birth to a child and neglect care so that it dies, you will be punished severely. A baby is so weak that it will surely die if his parents neglect him. Therefore God gives them wisdom and strength to take good care of him. So God makes him grow up well without harm. A young woman was overwhelmed with sexual desire of youth, lead a promiscuous sex life, got pregnant, and had a child. However she felt bothersome to nurture him, so she dropped him into excrements in a rural shit-house and killed him. A flush toilet in city has no place to drop a baby into. The rural toilets are full of poop and piss. People poop above, and the poop and the piss all accumulate below. Oh, what a wicked woman who made her baby die in that shit! (Some less wicked women kill their babies in their clean womb.)

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By the way, brethren, look at the ostrich in the text. This female ostrich lays eggs on the bare ground. Having laid eggs, she goes around looking for something to eat, without taking any protective measures for the eggs. This female ostrich does not care or worry at all about whether other animals will step on her eggs and break them or whether the eggs will be safe. What an ignorant mother ostrich! OK, anyway! But when the young ostriches are hatched from the eggs, she deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers (v. 16). What a nasty (irresponsible) mother she is! Then my brethren, can we call God unjust because he has given such poor intelligence to the mother ostrich? No! Because the ostrich egg is so hard that it will never break unless pressed by a considerable weight. So the mother ostrich need not worry about other animals' stepping on the eggs and breaking them. (And the egg is so big that no animals can bite or swallow it! It is completely safe against any animals except an elephant. And the mother ostrich need not brood her eggs by day time because the heat of the ground is sufficient for the eggs.) And as soon as the ostrich babies (chicks) come into the world, from the very beginning they are strong and mature enough to seek food themselves and to live themselves. Thus the ostrich chicks have no problem living themselves even if their mother ostrich does not take good care of them as a human mother does. Can we conclude that the female ostrich is ignorant because she is so indifferent to her eggs and heartless to her chicks? No, we can't! Can't you think that the mother ostrich behaves like that because she knows her eggs are so solid and her chicks are so strong and smart? To think otherwise, let's suppose the female ostrich is really too ignorant to take good care of her young. Even so, we can't blame God for giving so low an intelligence to her or call him unjust, because, as mentioned above, he may have given her a low intelligence, but instead he has given the chicks far more ability to live themselves without any difficulty than human babies.

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Not only low intelligence! The ostrich is a bird, but its wing performance is terrible. If God had made the ostrich as a bird, at least shouldn't he have allowed it to fly? My brethren, can we say that God, who gave the ostrich such useless wings, is unjust? No! Because an ostrich, when awake, can run faster than a horse. (The ostrich doesn't need to seek its food in the high sky as an eagle. And the heavy ostrich needs very big wings and enormous energy if it really wants to fly.) “When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. (v. 18)” ("The Lord is upright. ... There is no unrighteousness in him. (Ps 92:15)")

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When God praised Job as a faithful believer, Satan assured God that Job will blame and desert God if tribulations come upon him. God allowed Satan to cause many troubles in Job's house, and Job lost almost all in a day, and grieved. Then Job's friends came to him to console him and said, "Humbly seek God's forgiveness because you and your house must have committed some sins so that you've gotten this punishment." But Job couldn't agree to it even after thorough reflection on his past life. So he insisted that he hadn't committed any sins deserving such punishment. Job was so annoyed with his friends' condemnation that he wanted to see God directly and hear from him why such miserable things should have befallen his house. And Job really wanted to ask God why some wicked men should live in health and die in peace, and why some innocent men like him should suffer great misfortune.

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Job doubted the righteousness of God, thinking that the pain and misfortune he has met is too severe despite his righteous life. So God appeared to Job at last and said to him. “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? (Job 40:7-8)” This situation was due to Job's friends' questioning his hidden sins. Before that, Job had said, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10)" Anyway, when Job didn't agree to God's disposal, God helped Job have right judgments on the circumstances with various examples including the text.

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Does God rob the righteous of the worldly blessings because God is unrighteous? Does God not give the righteous the worldly blessing because he is unrighteous? My brethren, is God, who gave the female ostrich low intelligence, unjust? If man can maintain life only with worldly blessings, and man can gain eternal life only with worldly blessings, then God must give worldly blessings to all. In that condition, if God takes the worldly blessings away from a righteous man, he (God) is certainly unjust. But if the so-called worldly blessings make a man fall, make a man arrogant, and make a man leave God? And if the so-called worldly evil such as poverty, illness, accidents and misfortune makes a man humble, makes humans help and comfort one another, makes a man seek God more, and as a result, the misfortune makes God and man closer? Yes, my brethren! The reason why God is not unjust even if the worldly blessings depart us and the worldly evil comes upon us is that we are created a man who lives not by the worldly wisdom and prosperity but by the word of God. Man is a creature that can survive (overcome) easily the loss of the wealth. Man is so created as not to discouraged even when he falls ill. And man is endowed with the ability to love God more even in suffering. Man is a wonderful creature that can keep sincerity and faith bravely even before death. Therefore, there is not injustice at all with God in relation to all the misfortunes of human beings. Because God is not the author of the evil in the world and he will finally reward those who have overcome all adversity and who have kept sincerity and faith to the end.

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The man who received one talent thought his master to be a hard man who would reap where he hasn't sown (Mt. 25:24). This servant who received one talent misunderstood his master as a usurer who lends him some money and wants to make excessive profit. >Hard-hearted< means that there will be a relentless demand for compensation if any loss occurs. >To reap where no sowing was< means that the master likes to exploit others' labor to get much profit. The servant with one talent is annoyed whenever he thinks of his master. Because he thought he was an unjustly exploited man. He hated his master who told him to work hard and make a profit with the talent. So he buried the talent and gave it back to the master when he came. But the master was not such a shallow-minded person. The master gave also five talents to him who had received five talents and earned those five talents, and gave also two talents to him who had received two talents and earned those two talents. The master was very angry at the man with one talent because the man thought the master to be such an abject miser. The man with one talent had the ability to earn even ten talents if he would use his wisdom. Look at the world. Isn't there a man who has made ten billion dollars? But the man who received one talent ruined his life, misunderstanding and blaming his master, not thinking of his ability.

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My brethren, we can't blame God or think him unjust. No, we can’t! Do not misunderstand God. He is not the one who benefits from exploiting you. He does not reap any unjust benefits from your misfortunes and suffering. He gave all of you more than one talent. This talent is the ability to overcome the adversity and misery of the world without fail. If you think that God is good, and if you believe in him as such a God, you are already a winner. You are already a successful man. Because anyone who thinks God to be good uses his talent to reap fruits 30-fold, 60-fold and 100-fold.

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My brethren, God is by no means heartless one. He is never hardhearted or merciless. “Who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? (Job 38:8-11)” God has set the limits of the world. He has set the time and the paths for the sun, the moon, and the stars to appear and go. He sets the limits of the sea so that the waves do not overflow the earth. He sets the time for the wild beasts to be born. When a wild animal is pregnant, it is God who has decided when the young animal will come out into the world. The reason why God sets and keeps all the times, limits and ways like this is that he wants to make the world a world of order and harmony. He sets the period and magnitude of the pain the righteous will suffer, and prepares the good results of the pain. God sternly ordered Satan, "Strike Job as you want, but never hurt his life!" Like this, he sets limits to all affairs. Then how can you think he is merciless? It is just in the narrow human sight that the mother ostrich seems to be heartless to her young. If a man, by his wisdom and sense of ethics, condemns God as unjust and heartless, he is not only ignorant but also sinful. That is obviously a defamation on God. Therefore the first words God said to Job was, "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 38:2)" Can you say that God, who has set all limits of the world, is incompetent, irresponsible and ruthless because he is not able to set the period and magnitude of the suffering that such a man as Job will suffer? It's a bad (and unjust) idea!

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If you have misunderstood God like Job and lived in grievance against God, you must say now, "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee? I lay my hand on my mouth (Job 40:4," like Job who came to understand God correctly.

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May all of you who believe that God is good be blessed twice as much as before!

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Chong Tack Kim

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                               - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -