When You Have Had All You Can Take - Day 222 Through the Bible

Back to the Blue Ridge Cabin after a Gathering of Believers on the Texas Coast

A Layperson's Lessons and Applications from Today's Readings

Listening to God - not Man - Job 13 and 14 - Job has finally had all he can take!  He knows which counsel has been ungodly, which is merely platitude and proverb, which is true. He lays it on the line with his counselors, much like Jesus did with the outwardly "religious" of His day:  "1) I know all this.  I am not inferior to you.  2) You are forgers of lies; you are all worthless physicians.  3) Oh, that you would be silent!  4) Will you speak wickedly for God...talk deceitfully for Him...show partiality for Him...contend for Him?  4) Will it be well when He searches YOU out.  4) Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay."  He seeks only, wants only, will have only God as his Counselor, his Lord, his Savior:  "1) I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. 2) Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.  3) Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.  4) He also shall be my salvation.  5) I know I shall be vindicated.  Who is he who will contend with me?"  Then Job turns his speech to God alone, the One with whom he has walked so faithfully:  "Two things I ask:  1) Withdraw Your hand far from me, and let not the dread of You make me afraid. 2) Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then You respond to me.  Then Job's questions, pleas, and cries to God: 1) How many are my iniquities and sins?  Make me know them. 2) Why do You hide Your face and regard me as Your enemy? 3) Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?  No one! 4) Hide me...in the grave; conceal me...until Your wrath is past...appoint me a set time...remember me. 5) If a man dies, shall he live again? 6) All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes. 6) You destroy the hope of man; You prevail forever against him, and he passes on; You change his countenance and send him away." 

A Psalm that Speaks to Job's Tragedies: Psalm 94 (Today's reading: 12-19)  The perfect psalm for Job's anguish of the soul - "1) Blessed...is the man whom You instruct...O LORD...and teach...out of Your law...that You may give him rest...from the days of adversity...until the pit is dug for the wicked...for the LORD will NOT cast off His people...NOR will He forsake His inheritance...BUT judgment WILL return to righteousness...and all the upright in heart will follow it...Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?...Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?....UNLESS THE LORD had been my help, my soul would soon have settled in silence.  If I say, 'My foot slips," Your mercy, O LORD will hold me up.  In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul." (Ellipses are mine and are used for contemplation.)

Paul Speaking Further of Job-like Dilemmas - Romans 11:1-18 "1) Has God cast away His people"  Certainly not!  2) Even Elijah said, ' LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life."  But God says, 'I have reserved for Myself 7000 men who have not not bowed the knee to Baal.'  Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace - not works."  Job will endure more torment before God shows him His grace once again.

My Lessons and Applications - I wonder if there is a single believer among those who have experienced some of life's worst tragedies who cannot concur with Job in this chapter.  I know these were my exact thoughts toward some of the family, friends and professional counselors who attempted to advise me after a series of life-destroying tragedies.  There was no help from their counsel.  My walk for most of my life had been in close fellowship with the Lord and only He was/is able to console, comfort, convict, uplift and heal me.  He had allowed this in my life, and I knew only He could give me an adequate answer or sustaining comfort.  All subterfuge, platitudinous prayers, surface reasoning and philosophy are ineffective and even angering at these times.  These questions and claims Job poses to both his friends and God mark the climax, the turning point of Job's tragedy.  Man is not the solution and does not have the solution; only God, only His Word, only His presence, only a soul and spirit relationship with Him, only hearing Him will bring healing and restoration.  Have you been there?  Are you there now?  You and I will never be the same once we come out of this depth of soul and sole experience with God.  Job is down-spiraling in his despondency at this point and will endure more torment from his human counselors before God finally intercedes and condescends to answer Job. The best of this unforgettable saga of this deeply faithful servant and His gracious God is yet to come. 

God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself...God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings...God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith.  You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony.  Faith by its very nature must be tried...faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation.  Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life; much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive.  Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him - I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do.  "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" - this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.  

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Job 13:15)