Seeking God in Times of Trial
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Key Verse: “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.” Selected Scriptures: |
IN OUR LAST LESSON Satan had been allowed by God to afflict Job with boils, from his head to his feet. He was in so much pain that his wife asked him to curse God and die. Three so-called friends came to see him. All three insisted that his affliction was due to wickedness on his part and that he was receiving punishment from God. What says the word of God? “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” (James 1:13) God may allow tests to come upon us, but only to develop our character.
Through all this Job continued his defense saying, “I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”—Job 7:11, New International Version
One of the problems confronting humans is that when accused of something, they will almost always wish to make a defense, and this is what Job desired. He was asking God to be heard. He knew better than to argue with God, but wanted an answer to his suffering. He said, “He is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.”—Job 9:32-35, NIV
We can almost hear Job pleading with God, like the psalmist, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.” (Ps. 4:1) Job only asks two things of God, “Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.”—Job 13:21
Job felt that he needed a “daysman” (umpire) to stand for him in his plea to God (9:33); perhaps I have done something to suffer for. “How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.”—Job 13:23
Job’s so-called comforters kept up their bitter words until he cries out, “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.” (19:21) He wished he could die, for he knew of a coming resurrection. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”—vss. 25-27, NIV
Job longed to speak to God face-to-face. “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat.” (23:3) “He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” (vs. 10) In this respect Job is a picture of the people being selected in God’s name. (Acts. 15:14) These are assured of being brought forth as gold (a Divine nature) after their testing is over. They are assured of seeing God face-to-face. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.”—I Cor. 13:12