14 ¶
How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with
him? 15 Whom, though I were righteous,
yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge. 16 If I had called, and he had answered me; yet
would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice. 17 For he breaketh me with a tempest, and
multiplieth my wounds without cause. 18
He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.
19 If I speak of strength, lo, he is
strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead? 20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. 21 Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.
Job goes on
with, what can I say against God?
Zechariah 2:13 Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for
he is raised up out of his holy habitation.
But Job is
insisting upon his injury as an innocent man. He repeats what God had said to
Satan, even though he didn’t hear it. He says that God, “multiplieth,” his, “wounds
without cause.” Job laments that he cannot argue with God, that God has broken
him and Job isn’t even allowed to catch his breath. He blames God for filling
him with bitterness. Job acknowledges that he has no words with which to
justify himself before God, as none of us do. The very act of trying to justify
ourselves before a Holy and Righteous God condemns us as perverse. Even if Job
were without sin he would not argue to save his miserable life.* All a man or
woman can do with God is to throw themselves at his feet and plead for mercy.
We have
something wonderful today that Job did not have access to in his time. We have
the Holy Spirit of God living inside of each of us who believe.
John 14:23
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my
words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him.
Romans 8:9
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit
of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his.
10
¶ And if Christ be in you, the body is
dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what
we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Any man or
woman who realizes the wretched state that they are in as a human being, a
state of inability to please God, to honor God, to glorify God, and to love God
by virtue of their sinful condition can come to Christ and be saved. Only the
person who realizes that they are morally bankrupt in and of themselves will
come to Christ and depend on His righteousness and not their own to have
eternal life. This is one way to spiritualize the following verse from Christ’s
popularly named, “Sermon on the Mount,” and claim it for yourself.
Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
That Spirit can
comfort us, as I’ve quoted verses before showed, in a way that Job did not have
the ability to call upon.
Job
acknowledges that he cannot justify himself before God but then proceeds to
declare that he has been unfairly picked on and that the bitterness that fills
him is God’s fault. Here we are approaching a difficult lesson for the modern
Christian, particularly the American Christian, about God’s sovereignty and
absolute authority to dispose of him or her and the issues of their lives as He
sees fit. It is a very disturbing doctrine. I can understand why successful
people, gifted people, handsome people, pretty people, popular people,
accomplished people, and people who have
acquired great material possessions might, in their exaltation of their own
godlike self-view, reject the God of the Bible as their enemy. Indeed, they
would be the enemy of God. Can you, who don’t believe you need God, hope to
contend against Him? What do you hope to accomplish?
Who here, who
has experienced a great and seemingly needless and senseless tragedy, even if
they point at things they did or didn’t do that might have led to it, has not
said, “God, why did you do this to me?”, or, “God, why did you let this happen
to me?”
You screamed
and cried with many tears, “God, I know I didn’t do the right things, the
needful things, but I did what I knew, what I was told by society, your
preachers, and my parents, and this happened anyway!” Or perhaps you believe
you did the right thing, the Godly thing. “God, I was in church every time the
doors were opened. Maybe I didn’t have regular family devotions. Maybe we didn’t
read the Bible and pray together every day but my children heard lots of good
preaching and were around Godly men and women. How could you let this happen?”
We are broken
with a storm, a tempest, as Job put it, and God seems to multiply our wounds without
cause. Some of us are so angry at God if this happens that we want to kill
ourselves and are in grave danger of doing so.
We have such a
hard time with God’s sovereignty in those times, as did Job.
(*Note: The soul’s and
the body’s fate are spoken of often in the Old Testament as the same. What
happens to the body happens to the soul, a death and decay that is never-ending
(Isaiah 66:24). However, when a person receives Christ as their Saviour and has
the Holy Spirit of God indwelling them their soul is cut from their flesh and
the soul does not receive the judgment the flesh must.
From the Old
Testament;
Ezekiel 18:4
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul
of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
And from the
New the only type of the former Jewish circumcision (not baptism), a spiritual
circumcision;
Colossians 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head
of all principality and power: 11 In
whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye
are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised
him from the dead.)
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