A Time for Reflection
who pleased God . . ."
—Heb.11:5
Once again there was a day when the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and once again Satan appears in their midst. He is not at all abashed over his failure to prove his accusations of Job.
You hear a discourse between the Lord and the adversary that is similar to their previous one. This time, however, the Lord adds that Job "still maintains his integrity, even though you incited me against him to ruin him without reason."
That alone should silence all of the Bible commentators that charge Job with the blame for his troubles. Jehovah declares before His entire council that all of these trials were sent on Job "without reason." His confidence in Job's integrity, and faithfulness to Him, had been justified. His servant had stood the test! It was fully proved to the accuser that his sneering insinuation as to Job's motives in serving God was unfounded.
However, as is always the case, the adversary was not satisfied. He had a new argument: All the things that had been taken away did not really touch Job himself. They were external things. Now granted, the children were of his bone and of his flesh, but he knew they also belonged to God along with all the wealth he had received. Therefore, he surrendered them to Him, although it was with great pain and sorrow.
If you will remember, though, the Lord prevented Satan from touching Job, himself. Therefore, as the advocate argues, the case was not proved. The test had not been sufficient because it is easy to let go of things as long as they do not really touch the individual.
As much as I hate to admit it, I have to be honest and say I can certainly understand his argument, and I am sure the heavenly hosts standing by could, also. If someone loses a home in a storm, such as a tornado, they are shocked and dismayed but they go on, possibly to rebuild. I have heard about many who made bad financial investments and literally lost everything, filed bankruptcy and left with nothing. Despite their loss, they maintained their general health, recovered their losses and went on with life.
Certainly, many weak individuals have taken their lives over less, but most would recover, pick up the pieces and move on, usually stronger and wiser than before.
Howard Ruff, in his book Making Money wrote this in a chapter entitled Going for Broke:
"We hear a lot of pitiful stories in the 'War Room' from people who have been forced into bankruptcy or who have been defrauded out of large sums of money . . . They are devastated. Their self-image is shattered, their morale is destroyed and they feel scarred for life . . . I have learned that failure is not only not the end of the world, but that, when properly managed, recovery and rehabilitation can become an exhilarating, even euphoric, experience. There is nothing more exciting than picking yourself up and proving that your failure was merely a freak happenstance, one of those things that doesn't need to be explained or excused."
In the introduction of the same book, Ruff also confessed that after losing his business, accumulating a debt of over a half million dollars, and suffering the death of his 21 month-old son, that "it was at times like that you find out whether or not your beliefs are bone-deep or skin-shallow."
This is certainly true when your health is maintained. However, when someone's health is taken from them, it is difficult (although not impossible) to stand. It is so easy to be strong and confident when you are without any pain, but it sure is hard when your flesh is crying out in agony. Think how listless, and burned out you feel with something as simple as a head cold. Can you imagine being attacked with sore boils from head to foot?
When it comes to the topic of physical pain, when you are not the one actually experiencing the pain, you can entertain all kinds of noble theories about it. As long as it is happening to someone else, pain is just an abstraction, an unfortunate blight on an otherwise tolerable world. But, boy, oh boy, as soon as the Devil so much as touches your own body the whole picture changes. At that point suffering becomes an enormous, concrete reality so overwhelming that it has the power to engulf every thing else.
There are all kinds of examples describing what happens when strong, intelligent, self-assured people are suddenly caught in the grip of acute pain. Many believers are able, by God's grace, to bear enormous burdens of physical pain with dignity and even with joy. On the other hand, when a smaller degree of pain is applied to another believer, who may be just as godly, it can be enough to plunge them into depression or make them lose all control and whimper and scream for mercy. When King Hezekiah was struck with sickness, he "turned his face to the wall" and "wept bitterly." He simply could not take it.
Just as in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, the Devil quotes God's own law to Him: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and "skin for skin." It is almost as if Satan overheard Job's lofty thoughts concerning man's humble status of utter nakedness before the Lord. Then determines to take him at his word and make him more naked still, tearing off even his bare flesh and flaying him alive.
Therefore, Satan proposes a deeper test. "Just touch Job himself and see if he will still cling to you! See if in the furnace of suffering whether he will renounce his allegiance to you. Maybe he didn't serve you because of the gifts you gave, but he still has a clear conscience of a life void of sin, the inward peace of your presence, the reward of other people's respect. You take those things away and he will have nothing left. And he will curse you to your face."
The Lord looks around, maybe a little disgusted with the accuser's persistence, but says "Very well, then, he's in your hands; but you must spare his life."
The Second Attack
Well, he got the permission to attack Job, "So Satan went forth" and used his license to the limit.
Actually, I think that during a time of prosperity, when things are going well, you do not know how much you really are able to endure. I believe people are able to withstand and even conquer more than they give themselves credit. I have seen my wife, Patty, endure many demands that have been placed on her by raising our extremely active twin sons and one daughter, who was born when her brothers were 18 months old. I've seen her hold up under other pressures: Many times she had to return to our hometown, all of the children in tow, to find tenants for some rental properties we owned. Another time, I tended things at home while my wife spent several grueling days with our little girl who, when she was 8 months old, was hospitalized for a serious viral illness (you don't know pain until you have to stand in the hallway, listening to one of your children scream, while the doctors take a spinal tap).
We have often had people say, "How did you ever do it? I could never have survived." We have also said similar things to people when we found out they had two or three sets of twins, or worse yet, triplets. (We even met a woman who had four sets of twins!) The truth is, you never really know how much you can handle until you are thrown into it. Job was about to find out.
Always remember that grace is available when you need it. One error that is propagated among Christians is the idea that nothing will happen to you without God giving you the strength to endure it. That is not totally accurate. He will always make it available to you, but you have to appropriate it. That strength is His grace, which is always available in abundance, but you have to obtain it. He tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace to find mercy and obtain grace in your time of need. It does not just come automatically when the time of testing comes. It is always available for you, but you have to go get it from the Father.
In Job's case, the adversary could have hit him with a little Influenza, or maybe some tennis elbow —perhaps even some lower back pain—but no, he attacks him with a most repulsive, loathsome disease: sore boils from head to foot. He was covered with one universal inflammation. Some believe it was a form of leprosy called Black Leprosy or Elephantiasis, because the feet swell like those of an elephant. Without attempting a medical diagnosis of Job's condition, just listen to what he says about it at various stages: "My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering;" "My gauntness rises up and testifies against me” . . . “my face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes;" "My whole frame is but a shadow;" "Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest” . . . “My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever."
Because of the blistering, "Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes."
Let me try to explain the scene for you: in the Middle East, as I understand it, the dung is not mixed with straw as it is here in the west, but instead it is carried in baskets to a place outside the village where it is usually burned once a month. The rains eventually reduce the ashes to a solid hill of earth, and the place is used for a watchtower, or a place where people might congregate for discussions.
That is also where any outcasts with horrible diseases go at night for shelter among the ashes, which the sun has warmed. In other words, it was a dump.
Job, who was once the greatest man among the people of the East, is found, along with the beggars and outcasts. His wealth is gone. His children are gone. This is a man who once had servants to minister to his every wish, and now he has to take a piece of broken pottery and scrape himself because the sores were too repulsive to touch.
Who could recognize the princely Job, who once sat as chief, who people once looked up to as the most noble of the men of the East, sitting there among the ashes as some loathsome object?
On the Ash Heap
Let us think about this some more. Anyone who has ever had a severe skin disorder will know that it is a sort of thing that can drive a person half-crazy. How pathetic and heart-wrenching to read about Job having to use a piece of broken pottery to scrape his boils! Scratching is pointless activity; it only makes the infection worse. Everyone knows this, and yet we cannot help scratching, almost as if we were condemned to tear ourselves to pieces. This reminds me of one of the most terrible prophecies: "This is the plague with which the Lord will strike the nations that fought against
This is why, as you will see, when Job's three friends come to visit him, even before Job opens his mouth they have already formed a clear opinion as to what his problem is. In their minds, it is obvious to the whole world that if a man's body was visibly rotting away, he must be a sinner! Job's physical condition puts him in the same class as modern day AIDS patients. The torment was not just a private one but a public one as well. As terrible as the pain is, even worse is the shame. Listen to Leviticus 13:45-46: "The person with . . . an infectious skin disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' as long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."
This is exactly what happens to Job: he is banished from society, run out of town on a rail, treated as an outcast. That's why the verse makes a point to tell us that he was sitting "among the ashes" and scratching himself with "broken pottery." As I said above, where does one find heaps of ashes and broken pots? At the garbage dump, naturally. Job was not lying at home in his own comfortable bed between crisp white sheets and being waited on by private nurses; no, he was where all the other lepers and pariahs would be found, quarantined in the town dump. At least there, rather than being a burden on society, such people could take care of one another and scrounge around for their own food; besides, there would be lots of broken pottery to scratch themselves with. For all we know, even Job's wife and his friends would have treated him as untouchable, keeping a safe distance and talking to him through the stench and drifting smoke, like the poet Dante visiting with the shadows in the Inferno.
As the dialogue between Job and his friends unfolds, we will have to keep in mind this horrible picture of a reeking dump as the setting in which the long and rather abstract theological debate takes place. They are not sitting in some elaborate conference room with a multi-million-dollar church complex. They are not even around a kitchen table. Instead, they were right in the middle of heaps of ashes, smoldering fires, stench, buzzing flies, scampering rats, piles of rubble, and all the other junk you find in a dump—not to mention the human ruins.
Job's Integrity
Evidently, the only one left to Job is his wife, and she must have followed him to the ash mound outside the village. Do not overlook the pain of Job's wife; she has also seen all of their wealth stripped away. She has also experienced the horrible grief of her children's death.
When a husband and wife are united, they find a measure of strength and mutual comfort that holds its ground against almost any amount of trouble. Now, with the additional pain of seeing her husband's sufferings, she unknowingly lends her mouth to the adversary. Angrily she says the exact same words that actually passed between the Lord and Satan in the council room: "Are you still hanging on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
Many times Satan will plant a thought in someone's mind. They will make a comment that in effect attacks you at your weakest spot. You may be making a stand on a particular word that the Lord has given you, a particular promise that you need to apply your faith on. They come up and, unknowingly, try to make you give up or waiver from His promise to you.
How could she know that Job's integrity was in question? You know Satan must have had his eyes peeled on Job right now! He was watching to see the effect of this attack.
"Curse God and die!" We never read of anything she said when all the wealth was lost or of any rebellion over the loss of her children, but now it seems too much to see her husband suffer. "It would be better for you to be dead than to be in such suffering. The God you have served so loyally must have forsaken you! Are you still going to persist in blessing the Name of the Lord? You should rather 'renounce' Him—say some word against the Lord—and die."
Sound familiar? Many times we hear people say, "God can't be the 'God of Love' if He is going to let someone suffer." "When the Bible says that God will 'rescue you out of all your troubles,' that really isn't what it means." "Obviously God has abandoned you."
Is it a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of God? Can He be trusted? Why would God stand back and allow the enemy to bruise His children? "Lord, it isn't supposed to be this way!"
Others will ask you why you keep praying, "you know God's not listening." "You're forgotten, you're nobody, He doesn't care about you." "You were better off before you met God." Satan specializes in lies, confusion, desperation, and depression. He will move into your greatest weakness or need and throw his worst in our faces, then sit back to see what will happen.
But Job stood the test!
"You're talking like a foolish woman," he says to his anguished wife. "Those words should never come out of the lips of someone who worships Jehovah. I may not always understand what's going on around me, but as far as I'm concerned, it's lawful for Him to do whatever he desires with His own. Have we served Him only from selfish interests? Are we going to cling to Him only in times of prosperity? Shall we not accept from His hand sorrow and suffering as well as joy? Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
Just as when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, when one approach didn't work, he tried another, then another, steadily increasing the pressure, the seductiveness, and the subtlety of his strategies. Since it did not work to kill off Job's kids wholesale, when it comes to his wife, Satan adopts a different tactic: he sows strife and succeeds in turning the couple against each other. She ridicules his religion, and he calls her a fool. A degree of alienation sets in which, just in itself, would very likely have been the worst trial these two had ever passed through in their married life.
It is so easy to blame all of this on the woman and to react to her conduct with horror—as if it were something surpassingly strange and appalling. Yet, it looks to me to be pretty close to real life. Most spouses will graciously support their partner through certain degrees of misfortune, but when the hardships and the complaints drag on and on, even the most saintly love will reach a breaking point. In the very best and strongest Christian marriages there will come times when either partner may view the other (however temporarily) as no longer a lovable or godly person at all, but as a sniveling and self-centered little worm. Married couples make the vow "for better or for worse." Then, when it becomes worse and one's spouse has a nervous breakdown or contracts some lingering terminal illness, there are few wives or husbands who will find in themselves a natural desire to keep on being smilingly supportive. Notice I said a natural desire. There is always an abundance of grace for those who reach out for it. And at times, that is what Job finds for himself.
Job was in reality a thoroughly surrendered man. "In all this, Job did not sin in what he said," because his will was wholly yielded to Him.
The horrible truth is that many who call themselves children of God, in one way or another, do indeed serve Him for the good they get in this present world and in the world to come. Rather than serving Him for Himself alone, and would curse Him to His face if they experience any trial of significant proportion.
I don't think anyone has said it better than John White:
"Our quest must be the quest of a suitor, a suitor too blinded by beauty to descend to calculating self interest; too intoxicated with love to care about the cost or the consequence of his suit. It must be the love of Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet, enchanted by his words and grace, but deaf and blind to the frustration and fuss of her resentful sister (Luke 10:38-42). An enchantment of that sort will not be broken, nor its pleasures denied.
"It is time we threw spiritual pragmatism out of the window. We come habitually to God carrying shopping baskets and armed with a checklist of needed purchases when all the time He wants to put His arms around us and draw us to Himself. We know no other way. Custom and tradition have drilled us in the art of celestial bargain hunting. It is time we forgot about our spiritual performance and our spiritual needs and gave ourselves up to passion."
Job is a true man of God. Blow after blow had come on him, but his integrity had stood the test.
He proved by his surrender, and his confidence in God's faithfulness, that he did not serve Him for all that He had given him. Whether the Lord gave, or the Lord took away, he still blessed the Name of the Lord!
The awful thing is that God was not the one afflicting him. Now, in one sense I admire Job's devotion, however, I really regret his lack of knowledge of God's loving care.
As we go on in this study, you will see some flaws in Job's character. Don't misunderstand me, the Lord's testimony of him still stands strong. Nevertheless, after the pain and suffering continues Job naturally forgets that the Lord is not the one causing the affliction. He is Job's deliverer. Job becomes very indignant and self-righteous. He actually becomes more concerned about declaring his own innocence (and in doing so unwittingly prolongs his suffering) than acknowledging the great character of God. One thing to realize is that this story really is not a story of how to endure suffering, but rather of how desperately we need redemption on a continual basis.
Alienation
By the second chapter of Job's story, we begin to notice that there is a pattern to the trials of Job. It is a pattern that is like the tightening of a noose as the Devil's onslaughts grow more and more personal, closer and closer, to Job's heart. First, buildings and servants were attacked; then Job's children were taken; next, his body was struck with disease; now his wife has been alienated from him. Soon his closest friends will unwittingly become tools of the Devil as they assault him with cold comfort and shallow theology. From this point on Job's trials grow increasingly lonely and interior, for Satan is directly attacking his personal relationships.
The plain fact is, if you follow Jesus with serious intent, there will be times when you will find yourself absolutely alone, cut off from everyone. In spite of the unity and love that are ours in the Body of Christ, there are bound to come times when you have to stand utterly alone before God. Why is this? Because there are some traits of the heart, some spiritual qualities, that can only be acquired and perfected in solitude—and not in the comfortable solitude we call "time to ourselves" and of which we all crave a certain amount. No, I am referring to a grueling solitary confinement of real loneliness and desertion. There is just no way around it. Without tasting this experience, no Christian can become fully Christ-like. The Via Dolorosa, the path of the cross, must be walked alone. Like the dock before the very judgment-seat of God, this is a narrow place, wide enough for only one abreast. There is no marriage in Heaven, Jesus taught. We go through the pearly gates one by one.
Trouble from God
Unfortunately, from the outset Job blames no one but God for his problems. I remember listening to a trainer for fighter pilots speak on this very subject. He was sent to the Arab States to train their pilots for combat flight. During the training, whenever a pilot bounced off the runway during a landing, or missed a particular maneuver, they would blame Allah. "Allah willed it," they would state. It became very difficult to teach them if they were not willing to accept responsibility for their mistakes, don't you think?
I do like Job's attitude in that he refuses to get bogged down trying to figure out all the "reasons" for his troubles. God knows the reasons; he does not. To "accept trouble from God" implies the acceptance of a certain illogical dimension to life.
However, we need to stop blaming God for all our troubles. Even insurance companies call natural disasters "Acts of God." If I, being a father of four children, were accused of doing to them all the things God is blamed for doing to his children, I would have been in jail years ago for child abuse. Can you imagine a parent willingly and joyfully giving their children cancer, pneumonia, and diabetes? What about cutting their legs off to teach them humility? I am sure you have heard the saying, "Experience is the best teacher." Now imagine a parent teaching a child the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street using the "Experience" method of instruction. How about a parent saying to the kids, "Alright kids, today I am going to teach you the importance of not putting your hand on the flame of a stove." What kind of insanity would that show? Yet throughout history, we have accused God of doing just that.
God did not afflict Job, however the Lord can use those experiences to teach us and draw us closer. Although, during Job's trials, and those we encounter, there can be rejoicing because those trials bring out endurance, steadfastness, and patience. We have to allow the endurance and steadfastness have full play and do a thorough work in our lives. Why? So that we will be perfectly and fully developed, with no defects, and lacking nothing in our pursuit of His Kingdom (see the letter from James).
When we are in the midst of our struggles and lack the wisdom to handle the situation, all we have to do is ask and our Father will give us the strength, wisdom and support we need.
Here Come the Friends
It is amazing how fast bad news travels. Three of Job's intimate friends hear of his troubles and out of the kindness of their hearts and their deep concern for him, agree to go together and comfort Job.
Think of that. It would be great to have just one friend that would drop everything at a moment's notice, travel any distance, and stick by our bedside night and day for an entire week! Wow! Job apparently did not just have one friend-in-need, he had three.
What a moving scene it must have been. Three friends graciously come to visit Job in simple and quiet dignity, expressing their heartfelt compassion and solidarity.
Well, at least it would be, if that was the way it happened.
Along the way, these three friends do what we would probably do in a similar situation: they discuss the whole affair from every point of view. Then, before they even see the stricken man, come to their conclusions as to the cause of the evil, and settle best how to deal with him.
Now I assume their overall intentions were good. But Isaiah 50:4 says that the Lord "has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary." Another translation puts it this way: "that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." Maybe they should not have been talking to each other so much and instead consulted the Lord. What you are going to see is that they are never able to sustain the weary in this story. Proverbs
I remember hearing one person say that God has not called us to be gap-finders but rather gap-fillers. In other words, it is easy to point out all the areas where someone has screwed-up instead of helping them to overcome or deal the problems. As the story continues to unfold the only thing these friends do is point out where Job may have missed it, instead of coming alongside and comforting him.
This idea of strengthening the weak, or even correcting those in error, is a fine and delicate art. One we must learn if we are to be Christ's ambassadors. We need to learn to minister the true comfort of the Lord and strengthen the grieving person's hand in God. They need to learn to believe their way through their paths of trials, and learn what God's purpose is in their struggles. You won't learn that by listening to your own reasoning.
Most of us know or understand very little about the inwardness of things. We only judge by what we see and hear. Then we end up coming to conclusions which are usually biased by our own limited experience and understanding.
We do not give the counsel of the Lord, but rather the philosophy of men. If you are called upon to give counsel or comfort, do not waste your time consulting with flesh and blood, going to the psychology books and recent programs from Oprah Winfrey. No, draw your help from the counsel and immense wisdom of the Lord.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the three friends, approach the village. "When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him." Is that Job lying there? The greatest man of all the people of the East? Can this pitiful object be the Job they had known? "They began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads" as a token of their sorrow.
At last, they reached the ash mound, "then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him." What could they say? How could they speak? "Because they saw how great his suffering was." They were dumb in the presence of such unparalleled suffering.
The Friends Dig In
Once Job's friends show up and open their mouths we begin to see what was really on their minds during those seven days of silence. What was really going on was that they were condemning him.
It is a distasteful fact, but a fact nonetheless, that the three friends who came "to sympathize with [Job] and comfort him," fell far short of that goal. Far from actually comforting Job, in their minds they were picking him to pieces. They were analyzing him up and down for faults, loopholes, and hidden sins, casting around in search of reasons for all the terrible things that had happened to him. Although we are told that these discreet men said nothing at all to Job for an entire week, I can imagine that they whispered confidentially among themselves.
The main point with this mission of mercy was there no mercy given. Certainly, Job himself did not find any comfort from his friends. On the contrary, we will watch him grow increasingly angry, to the point where his friends, impatient with his uncooperative attitude, will find it impossible to sustain even the outward semblance of sympathy towards him. Instead of truly identifying with him, they will distance themselves and withdraw. Feeling overwhelmed, and scrambling to get a better fix on the problem, they will do the only safe thing: they will pull back and assume the stance of objective analysts. Naturally, they will go about all of this in a very warm and godly way and with the best of intentions. They are like benign family physicians, kindly old docs faced with a rough case and scratching their balding heads. Yet without realizing it, by their clinical theorizing they are effectively withdrawing their human affections, their friendship, and this is at the very time when intimate friendship is most needed.
Obviously, none of this is spelled out quite so early in the story; but in later chapters, it comes spilling out. Like all fair-weather friendships, and all flawed theology, Job's friends stop short of the cross.
Job Voices His Complaint
Job was the first to break the silence, and when he speaks, he pours out the depths of his soul. He doesn't exactly renounce God. Nor does he actually rebel against Him. However, he does "curse the day of my birth."
There were no words of welcome to his friends,. Nor did he explain anything to them. Formalities and ordinary language really didn't have any place at a time like this.
The words that Job pours out in the anguish of his soul tell us something of the thoughts that have been filling his mind during the silence of this past week.
"May the day I was born perish. That day should never again be a joyous one, instead let it be a day of mourning. Oh that it could be blotted out from the calendar, that it might be forgotten.
"Why didn't I die ... for now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest ... In the grave the weary have rest ... the wicked cease from turmoil ... the prisoners no longer hear the slave drivers shout ... the slave is freed from his master."
It is interesting how in the middle of a deep trial we figure death is the only escape. Elijah said to the Lord in his time of exhaustion under the Juniper tree: "It's too much, I can't take any more . . . Take away my life."
Moses said under the pressure of the responsibilities of leading the Israelites: "The burden is too great! Kill me, I beg you."
Jonah said when the Lord did not fulfill the threatened judgment of Ninevah: "It would be better for me to die."
"I wish I were dead." Those words have been said by many repeatedly in the time of anguish.
Maybe that is what you are saying. Maybe you are not considering death as your escape, but you may be considering divorce, it could even be marriage for some. You might be trying to find an escape in a different job, a new church, running away from your children, ad infinitum. Whatever it is, it is still a lie. Your peace will never be found in a different place, a new "significant-other," only in a renewed relationship with the Lord, and an acceptance of the circumstances in your life that you will have to endure.
With all this talk, Job has not really rebelled against the Lord yet, but he was getting pretty close to it. He had told his wife that we should be willing to "endure unpleasant things" as well as receive "good things" from the hand of God. However, to long for death as the way of escape, is not the way to bow to the will of God.
Yet, it is the cry of nature for escape from suffering, pressed out from the soul in its anguish and pain. It's the same with divorce or, for instance, Patty and I thinking about moving back to
Satan is behind all of this language, the same way he moved Job's wife when she tempted Job to speak against God.
The enemy is throwing this cloud on his mind, and pouring into his head these thoughts of escape through death. Some have yielded to such thoughts in the time of deep anguish and despair. They have been driven by the tempter to take their lives in order to reach this place of rest.
If you find yourself thinking these thoughts, take hold of the Lord. Thank Him for the privilege of life. Take authority over those thoughts! Resist and flee the temptation of dwelling on thoughts of peace in the grave—choose life! Even if it is life in the very crucible of fire, right now. It will pass! The sky, not the grave, is our goal! "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
Job's problem is that he keeps dwelling on these thoughts. "Why is life given to the bitter in soul; to those who long for death . . . which rejoice when they reach the grave?" He doesn't realize the cowardice of his language, or that he is opening the door to the enemy even further. He goes on to call himself a man whom God has hedged in. To Job, the hedge is one of his miseries while Satan considers it one of Job's peculiar blessings!
Job concludes this outpouring of grief by saying what has probably become the most quoted, and most misunderstood, words in this whole story: "What I feared most has come upon me."
That one sentence is used as the proof-text that all of Job's troubles were of his own making. "He had fear and instead of faith," I hear them say. Possibly, what he feared was not the calamity, but rather the testing of his faith.
Taught of God as Job was, he knew that the time of testing must come. Now that it had, he found himself shrinking back from it and being afraid of it. He confesses that he had not been at ease in spite of the outward peace of his life. He knew that the furnace was inevitable, and now all that he had shrunk from had happen.
The testing will come! What form it takes for you I don't have any idea. As I said before, it might be physical, maybe emotional. It could be a lying down of your own plans for school, marriage or even ministry, or wealth. For Abraham it was sacrificing his only son and only heir. In fact, it was sacrificing the very thing that the Lord had given him!
Everybody looks at the story of Isaac and thinks that it wasn't so hard for Abraham to offer Isaac. After all, the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and he didn't really have to do it. However, Abraham didn't know that! And you can't have any confidence that when the Lord demands you sacrifice something very important, even something He has clearly given you, that he may not stay your hand and you may never be able to have those plans again.
That shouldn't matter anyway! If something is truly laid on the altar as a sacrifice it is no longer yours! You no longer have any claim to it.
I do not know what words to use to drive the reality of this home. God will accept nothing less than absolute surrender to His will. A.W. Tozer once said that there are three characteristics of a dead man. First, he is facing in one direction. Second, he does not look back. Third, he is not making any plans of his own.
I have met some that were waiting for a call to a nationwide ministry of historic proportions when the Lord wanted them first to finish college. Some waiting for a mate, when maybe the Lord has other plans for them and is waiting for them to stop wanting.
The point of all of this is we must simply lay ourselves, our lives, plans, desires, dreams, ambitions—everything!—on the altar and let the Lord do as he desires.
In my opinion, one of the biggest problems in many churches is so many people want to be somebody and not enough people who couldn't care less if they are even noticed. Their only desire is to be true to the Lord and fulfill His will and not their own.
My only desire, if I fall asleep before the Lord's return, is that they can quote Acts
Everybody wants to preach and teach but nobody wants to sit and serve. That's what Paul was trying to get people to understand when he was saying that the eye is no more important than the ear -- they simply serve a different purpose.
The hand is no more valuable than the foot. Both serve a very important function but people are able to survive without either. Where is true humility, that which says: "The Lord is the vine and I am the branch. Without Him, I can do nothing! If He sees fit to use me, I will obey with great joy and enthusiasm. If not, I'll obey with great joy and enthusiasm."
I believe it was Broadman who said: "There is no hierarchy in the gifts of God. The ministry of the church does not rest on status but on service. No gift that serves others is little. God uses both stars and candles to light his world."
The issue to God is not who are the stars and who are the candles. What he is concerned with is His light coming forth. Sometimes we are hung up on the stars and we forget that a star only shines at night—one designated time—but a candle can shine at any time and anywhere.
The times of testing will come. Do not shrink back from it. Do not be afraid of them. The result will be a purity of heart and inner strength to endure all things. In fact, as I already reminded you above, you should consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds . . . so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. When you stand the test, you will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.
Paul admonishes us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” We are to “endure the hardships as discipline because it is for our good that we may share in His Holiness.” He admitted that “no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” “Later, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those that have been trained by it.” However, if you refuse that training “it will cause resentment and misery.”
Calling a Spade a Spade
Okay, let us consider Job's first outburst some more. He should be commended because for seven days he was silent and showed great restraint. Never once did he sin by saying anything wrong. Then why in the world does he have to ruin everything by opening his big mouth and sticking his foot in it? I don't care how much you try to sympathize with Job's suffering, his expression of it now becomes so dark and shocking that we can't help but ask, What is really going on here? Do we have to hold the whole chapter at arms length, chalk it up to the misguided ravings of a man who has essentially lost control of himself, a tortured mind gone haywire?
Well, think about that a moment. One of the most distinctive impressions we should have as we read the speeches of Job is that he is a man who has not gone haywire. He knows exactly what he is saying and means every word of it. True, at the end of the story he will recant his strong language and "repent in dust and ashes," but that will be given in entirely different circumstances. They come as the result of a direct encounter with the Lord. However, at the moment of his first statements, we see Job at one of his most grimmest points. During his trial he never does teeter over the brink into madness, but instead faces his entire ordeal with eyes wide-open. Even when he is utterly broken, he somehow retains not only his faith but also his sanity.
We have no way of telling exactly how long his trials may have lasted. The events we have looked at so far comprised at the very least ten days, and probably closer to two or three weeks (although the suggestion of "months" in 7:3 may indicate a longer period). The rest of the book could have easily taken place over as short a period as a single afternoon. If that is the case, we might be able to understand why Job, after a lengthy siege of silent agony, would have finally broken down and vented a one-day (or one-hour) outburst. Even Jesus was known to give way to apparent bouts of frustration, as when He complained about His poor scruffy band of stupid and incompetent disciples: "O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Matt. 17:17).
The fact is there is a point at which any man simply throws in the towel. He does not abandon his faith, necessarily; he just gets thoroughly sick and tired of trying to put a good face on things, when the things he is facing do not have anything good about them. This is not sin; it is just plain honesty. It is calling a spade a spade. Job is a forthright and plainspoken man, the sort of person who is not afraid to say what is on his heart. At the very beginning of the conversation with his friends, we have to admit that such uncommon honesty may be one of the greatest virtues a believer can possess.
The third chapter of Job seems to be one of the most depressing chapters in the entire Bible—even more so than Psalm 88, which after eighteen dark and depressing verses ends abruptly with the line, "Darkness is my closest friend." It seems obvious the Psalmist reaches the end of his prayer without receiving any answer, without so much as a crumb of comfort. Yet for this reason, there can be a strange comfort in reading of this psalm in times of deep trouble. It is good to be reminded that such a black outpouring really is Scriptural, that prayer does not have to be upbeat and optimistic all the time. The true believer does not always rise from his knees full of encouragement and fresh hope. There are times when you may remain down in the dumps and yet still have prayed well. What God wants from us is not the observance of religious protocol, but just that we be real with Him. What He wants is our heart.
The Dark Side
It does not matter how you try to sympathize with and rationalize Job's dark mood. From the minute he first opens his mouth, most Christians start to squirm with distaste and turn away in disgust and contempt. (It has been said that Christians are the only army that sacrifices its wounded). The thing we hate the most is all this doom-and-gloom death-talk, this longing not just to die but for total annihilation, not just to stop existing but never to have existed before. Good Christians do not want to listen to this kind of talk. We just feel that Job is wrong—terribly wrong—to "curse the day of his birth." We do not want consider the possibility such ghastly and despairing words could actually come out of the mouth of a believer in God, let alone by someone with a reputation for exemplary sanctity.
So it is not just Job's wife and friends who pass judgment on him; we do too. We are inclined to dismiss and reject him, or else to stick our fingers in our ears, yell "Na, na, na, I'm not listening," and pretend he doesn't know what he is saying. Maybe he is not such a great and holy guy after all. Think about it, as soon as things get bad enough, he starts whining and cursing and crying in his cup. He is just like any old drunk in a bar crying in his drink. Evidently, the Devil was right about him all along. When the pressure gets too great he caves in and loses his faith.
In all honesty, however, as black and turbulent as Job's thoughts are they essentially any different from our innermost thoughts? On the other hand, is the real difference that Job voices his thoughts and we hide ours? It is obvious he states whatever is on his mind, things we feel probably should not be said, although we have the same thoughts gnawing away in our minds. The Story of Job brings these thoughts out into the open. They shockingly appear on the lips of a decent and upright man.
Being a believer in God by necessity implies grappling with the dark side of our nature. However, many of us seem to be afraid of this dark side. Instead of dealing with it realistically, we repress and deny it. If we do this consistently, we have to ask ourselves whether we believe in the healing power of Christ's forgiveness and in His victory over our evil natures. Maybe we have never come to grips with the fact that we, in ourselves, are evil. If not, then we will never be prepared for those times when believing in God is like being awake during open heart surgery. God is not finished with us yet; He is still creating us, still making into His image. As followers of Jesus, we have the strange privilege of actually being wide awake as He continues to fashion us, to watch wide-eyed as His very own fingers work within our hearts. This can be a painful process, and there is no anesthetic for it. Then again, maybe the only anesthetic is trust—trust in the Surgeon. However, trust is not a passive thing, it is only mistrust, fear, and suspicion that keeps silent.
We should not blame Job for giving voice to feelings that in most of us come out in other ways. He says out loud that he despises the day of his birth, and while most of us would never admit to thinking such a thought, let alone voicing it, don't we often live as though it were true? Whenever we grumble and complain, whenever we do anything unwillingly, whenever we say a bad word against someone else—aren't we, in effect, despising the day of our birth? We are being openly and rebelliously critical of God's gracious gift of life. Even in the face of the tiniest frustrations, our reactions may betray the presence of a lingering resentment over the fact that we were ever created and brought into such a hard world in the first place.
Only the person who maintains an attitude of pure and unwavering thankfulness for every precious moment that the Lord has given, has any right to say a word of criticism against Job in Chapter 3.
Depression
Many commentators on the story of Job feel that the sweeping change that overcomes Job, from the top-notch, numero uno believer to king of doom-and-gloom, is not quite believable. Yet, by this stage it should be obvious that an entirely new trial has begun. It is the trial of depression, of deep mental and spiritual trauma. So far, Job has weathered the terrible disasters quite admirably. Now the battlefront has shifted, from outside to inside. It is now Job's inner character, his very spirit that is under direct satanic attack. In the words of Proverbs
Is it true that God would allow Satan direct access to the very heart of a believer for the purpose of unhindered oppression? Well, Jesus told Simon that Satan asked to sift him as wheat. “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.” And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." Notice Jesus did not say "no" to Satan's request, he simply said that when it happens, Simon's faith not fail. Listen to what John of the Cross says about this: "In proportion as God is guiding the soul and communicating with it, He gives the Devil leave to act with it after the same manner." Elsewhere John states that God certainly does "permit the Devil to deal with the soul in the same measure and mode in which He conducts and deals with it Himself . . . Thus the Devil cannot protest his rights, claiming that he is not given the opportunity to conquer the soul, as was his complaint in the story of Job."
It is important to realize that nowhere in the story are we given any reason to believe that Job's depression, in and of itself, is ever viewed by the Lord as being his own "fault." On the contrary, in view of the clear mandate for unlimited harassment (short of death) that was given to Satan, we have to see that Job's emotional crisis is part and parcel with his other trials. It is just one more of Satan's assaults on his faith. Remember Satan's aim is to still Job's faith in the Lord. Perhaps this attack will drive Job to desperation. Maybe it will cause him to be desperate for wisdom; desperate for freedom; desperate for victory. It has been said that "only the desperate are truly hopeful."
I recognize there are forms of despair and depression that are without hope and full of godless self-pity and destructiveness. There is also a kind of despair that when confronted by certain situations, seems to be the only authentic response that can be made. There is also a realistic, courageous, and persevering despair that is in the highest degree. This is the type a person will have when he knows things are wrong—that they are all wrong—and that they absolutely must get better or else he will die. The reason he despairs, then, is that he knows in his heart that there is a better way, and he has made up his mind that he will not rest until he finds it. He will not settle for anything less. Such a person reaches a point of staggering abandonment, being prepared to live with an inconceivable weight of sensual and psychological deprivation for the sake of holding out for deep spiritual truth.
This is not despair; this is hope. It is like a spiritual hunger strike, an all-consuming protest staged against the world's complacency. A lazy and self-satisfied person will never despair in this manner. Only a person who believes ardently in God will have the courage to endure such despair. Only a person hopes with all his heart, and whose soul therefore cries out day and night to the living God for help, can live with spiritual famine. George Rouault wrote, "I believe in suffering; it is not feigned in me. This is my only merit. I was not made to be so terrible."
What sort of hope do most churchgoers have today? Is it anything more than a grim stoicism, the ability to keep a stiff upper lip in the midst of life's fray? Is it the sort of hope that hides from reality? If the average Christian fell into despair, would he even know it?
Loss of Peace
I skirted this issue a little bit above, but it deserves another look. Job cries out that he has "no peace, no quietness, no rest but instead is only in turmoil. "
The loss of spiritual peace is something that all believers legitimately fear. Jesus said, "Do not be afraid," and in the same breath He promised, "My peace I give you." The two are so inseparably linked that when peace vanishes, it is inevitable that fear will take its place. For the true believer in God, this is the one crisis, the one great calamity. Let anything else happen, but not this. It does not matter if my entire life falls apart, so long as I have peace. Yet, peace is precisely what was taken from Job. This is what he identifies as the greatest of his tragedies and the real nub of his anguish.
As Christians, we should ask ourselves what sort of things we complain about, and what causes us the greatest pain and fear. When we suffer, do we truly know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings? Or is our suffering only that which all the rest of the world experiences: the physical pains of a decaying body, the neurotic fears of a fallen mind, and the infinite gnawing angst brought on by selfishness and sin? Novelist Walker Percy, on the opening page of The Second Coming, says this about his main character: "For some time he had been feeling depressed without knowing why. In fact, he didn't even realize he was depressed. Rather was it the world and life around him which seemed to grow more senseless and farcical with each passing day." In this chapter, Percy has captured something of the essence of contemporary civilization. If only more people would complain and protest bitterly against the absence of peace with God! Unfortunately, even many Christians do not seem to hold peace of heart in very high esteem. Instead we make our peace with the gods of overwork, anxiety, and quiet desperation. Too often, a peaceful life is sacrificed for the sake of other goals: career, worldly accomplishments, entertainment, people-pleasing, the satisfaction of frantic activity, and other frivolities. We get used to living with chronic restlessness, even to the point of mistaking it for peace. What happens is we need to take a vacation—an opportunity to "get away from it all," to relax. Yet, Christ has called us to celebrate the "Year of Jubilee" every day of our lives. You can read the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus to see the significance of the Jubilee year. Think of it, every fiftieth year was a year of Jubilee, a time when all work was to stop, all debts were cancelled, and all property was to be returned to the rightful owner. It was to be a year of celebration and peaceful living. Hey, good news for you, Jesus is the Jubilee!
Now this guy Job was a man who had a firm and intuitive grasp of the principle set out in Isaiah 32:17: "The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever." Since Job knew he was a righteous man, where then were the peace and confidence that were his due? Throughout the debate with his friends Job will repeatedly claim these clear terms of his covenant with the Lord, and yet at the same time he wastes no breath trying to claim anything that the Lord has not promised him. He insists on spiritual rights, not worldly rights, and it is this very insistence that makes of him a great man of faith. He holds God to His Word, and no more.
