Job (2)

by J. Miller | Category: Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings | May 1982

Is Job's future hope placed in man's judgement of him? Ah no! He says, "But I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth". He has One who will stand for him and vindicate his cause; poor and needy as he is, his family and his substance gone, and smitten in his body with boils, and scraping himself with a potsherd and sitting in ashes; his case will yet be more desperate when death has claimed him and his skin has been destroyed. Who will smite death backward in disordered rout and redeem from his cruel hand the bodies of the saints? One and One only, He who holds the honoured name of "My Redeemer". How sweet to look up, as a sheep into its Shepherd's face, and say, "My Redeemer"!

It seems strange that Job on the one hand should accuse God of being the cause of all his troubles, yet on the other hand, through the merit of his Redeemer, hope to see God: "Yet from my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself". Job's experience if rightly considered is a corrective to all murmuring and complaining and accusing God as being the cause of evil. Job did not understand who it was that had afflicted him. He did not know what is revealed to us, and because he did not know he acted as he did, and later confesses to God, "Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not, things too wonderful for me, which I knew not" (42:3).

Nothing can happen to God's people without God's permission. We should not treat lightly what seem to be calamities that befall us. If we are worthy, God may cause us to pass through days of testing during which we may glorify God, or we may dishonour Him, and having failed Him in the test, prove worthless for future tests and service. What advantage can possibly be gained should we in the day of trial turn on God and accuse Him of being the cause of our trouble? We may be embittered in spirit and complain of wrongs; if so, let us read of Job's experiences and think of his words, of his great loss and his greater gains at the end of the trial. The trial brought him double blessing. "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand".

J. Miller | May 1982
Voices From The Past - Extracted From Jottings