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Peering Into The Heart of Poor Job
By
Christian Belyea
The devil and the LORD were sort of playing chess, so to speak. Then the wicked one whispered in his hissing speech, “This pawn of Yours, Job, would never love You if You hadn’t blessed Him so bountifully." But gracious God knew better as He moved His king closer to checkmate. “All right,” He told Satan, “You can take everything away from him—you just can’t pulverize his person. You can't kill him.”
Now things get really messed up. Poor Job’s in a dither. He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve what he thought was God’s curse upon him. He must have been thinking: What crime have I committed against my Creator for Him to be cursing me so…to be cutting me to the core like this? Oh why, oh why, when He’s always been so good to me? Why, has He taken my children?! My livestock?! Even my riches and rendered in return to me nothing but woe?
Haven’t I tithed meticulously? Haven’t I pleaded the cause of the poor? Haven’t I offered enough atonement sacrifices for poor, befuddled me and for the sake of my family? Oh, dear! What must I have done to deserve all this? And to top it all off, the LORD has afflicted me with blistering sores full of pus all over my poor, aching body that I have to scrape with pottery shards to keep the infection from sending my soul to the grave!
Oh, why has God has abandoned me when I have tried to be as faithful as I can be? Oh, how I long for the days when He blessed me in all my ways…And now my ways must be way off in His eyes! Oh, how did I stray from His wonderful ways and choose waywardness instead…so much so that He has has hit me in the head! Yes, he has wiped out everything for my wayward ways. God’s meat cleaver, or so Job thought—had cut him that dark, dreary day.
“I mean, I love You, LORD,” he must’ve prayed, “and I thought You adored me. Was I deaf to Your pleas? Did I not fall enough to my knees? Have I been somehow too blind to see that I had done something to offend Almighty Thee?" But nope. As far as poor Job could fathom He had couldn’t for the life of him figure out what transgression was tied to his heart, for he would repent immediately and worship this precious God—make a brand-new start.
Yes, he would bow on his knees; yes, he would bend over with humility before the Beloved One and beg His mercy and for God to forgive and to bless him once more. “And if I have offended Thee, Almighty One,” was his plea, "why send me so much misery?”
“O LORD,” he exclaimed before his so-called buddies, “If I’ve offended You, I am so terribly sorry. But to the best of my knowledge I haven’t. So, why are You punishing me?"
Nope, Job couldn’t get it. All he heard was the sound of silence from the Savior.
And neither could his “friends” get it either. All they kept himming and hawing about was how Job must have transgressed against the Treasured One in some foul, fiendish way…that perhaps Job wasn’t as righteous as he came off to be. Oh, how the words of his blessed “buddies” must have wounded poor Job so soulfully. Yes, their words were as weapons wounding him woefully.
And his wife…well, she was more of a hindrance than a help. And she surely didn’t love poor Job as much as Job loved her. For she got fed up and shouted at Job to just curse God and die (Job 2:9)! Some wife she was. She didn’t seem to care that if Job cursed God, he’d be headed for hell, and she would never hear her husband's voice again. That doesn’t spell love to me. She clearly wasn’t the one to seek solace from. And Job pointedly put it to her, “Shall we not accept the good from God and not the adversity (Job 2:10)?
So, good ole Job did what he always did—He got real with God. He told God his compelling complaint. "Why are you making me suffer so, when I’ve sought so hard to be such a saint?!"
And our faithful Father answered His anointed one, but not in the way we’d anticipate. No, the LORD gave Job a peace of His mind that day. He gave him a speech, so to say. “Were you here when I measured the earth? Were you giving me wisdom when I hurled the worlds into the heavens?”
Nope…
And Job was speechless. If Job’s Maker were so miffed at him, God wouldn’t have given him the time of day. But here was God graciously putting Job in his place. “No, you didn’t sin,” God told him, "but you are a sinner nonetheless"(Romans 3:23). And Job accepted this, for he knew God was right. What God was also saying to Job that dreary, dreadful day was that Job couldn’t possibly comprehend his Creator’s wonderful ways—even if it meant pain being poured full-strength without mixture into Job’s overflowing, cumbersome cup. What God was kind of saying is, “Acceptance is the key, Job…Get that, and you’ll get Me!”
And then Job finally saw the Light! That God is good, and His ways are always right. He exclaimed so happily, "But He knows the way I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10). So, he accepted the advice of his awesome Creator and chose to praise his God regardless of his grief. And you know what? God was glorified that day as He moved His king piece forward and exclaimed to the snake, “Check mate!”
Yes, the wicked one had tried to test Job’s faith, and sweet Job had pulled through, had gotten in to Satan's face. So, the LORD blessed Job beyond measure. He restored Job’s bountiful crops and his livestock double. He restored Job’s riches double. And He restored Job’s family double by rendering to him a new one. In fact, Job’s three new daughters were the delight of all the land: they were that desirable.
As for Job’s so-called buddies…well, they had to wallow in their own words. And God ordered Job to make a sacrifice for all of them, or He would surely have cursed them for their calloused responses to poor, innocent Job…for railing against him that he had riled the Redeemer when he hadn’t at all…for thinking smugly that maybe Job wasn’t so righteous, after all. And perhaps…just maybe…they had been somewhat jealous of Job for having been blessed so bountifully in this world, and they wanted to gloat over Job’s grief-filled situation.
And that’s it, my friends. Job got back his riches instead of having to dig ditches. Satan got smashed in the face because he couldn't grasp God's sweet grace.
And God got the glory that day.
All Scriptural references taken form the NKJV Bible, 1985.
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