Job's Victorious Faith
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
All of the heroes of the faith have not lived in our day. To tell the truth, we fear that the heroic faith which marked the ancients is waning. Even under the increased light, and the fuller revelation of God, which the present age now holds, many have made shipwreck concerning the faith.
It does one good to read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, and to behold the conquests which the Old Testament saints wrought through faith. Their faith carried a far-flung vision. They all died, not having received the promises, but they, by faith, saw them afar off, and were persuaded of them.
In the midst of the days of God's Old Testament worthies, Job lived. His name is not enrolled in the star cluster of Hebrews eleven, but the Holy Ghost, through James, did refer to "the patience of Job."
We are willing to grant that Job, for a time, seemed hid under clouds of despair. His trial, as we saw in our last study, was equalled only, perhaps, by the trials of the Lord Himself. Nevertheless, this is true. The black clouds that shrouded Job, the dense darkness that hid from him the face of his Lord, no more than enhanced the glory of his visions of victorious faith, which came to him, ever and anon. Job's faith was like the occasional burst of the rays of the sun through a storm-shadowed sky.
We are reminded time and again of the words of one who said to Christ, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."
Job may have doubted, but he did not always doubt. His disease, along with the taunts and jibes from his three false friends, no doubt led him to despise the day in which he was born; however, they never turned him aside from his final trust in the Living God. The truth is that the faith of Job presents to us some of the most marvelous visions of trust to be found in the Word of God.
When the Lord comes He may not find faith upon the earth, because the faithful will have been raptured; yet, we thank God that there are still those who "love not their lives unto the death."
I. JOB'S VISION OF JUSTIFICATION (Job 9:2)
Bildad the Shuhite had been telling Job that if he were pure and upright God would awake for him. He argued that inasmuch as God had not come to Job's rescue, therefore, Job was a hypocrite; and his hope was but a spider's web. Bildad said, "God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will He help the evildoers."
Job, in his reply, said to Bildad, "How should man be just with God?" Job admitted that he could not answer God "one of a thousand." Job had steadfastly sustained his own righteousness, and yet he admitted, "Though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my Judge." "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me; if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse."
Justification is impossible apart from the Blood of Jesus Christ. God cannot justify the guilty, nor can He receive into His holy presence the unclean. All men, however, are both guilty and unclean, and therefore, they abide under the wrath of God. God, nevertheless, can be Just, and the Justifier of the ungodly, through the Daysman, Christ Jesus, to whom Job evidently referred when he said, "Neither is there any Daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both." This is exactly what Christ did, and what God accomplished through Him.
II. JOB'S CONCEPTION OF GOD'S OMNIPOTENCE (Job 10:8-12)
This is an age in which we need a renewed vision of God's omnipotent power. The world is humanizing God, and deifying man. Contrary to all of this, Job confessed his own nothingness, and God's eternal almightiness.
1. Job said, "Thine hands have made me." Job saw the finger of God fashioning him together around about. He felt that God was the One who had brought him into the world. Herein is a vital confession of faith, If we do not believe in the creative God, how can we believe in the God that cares for His own! When man rejects God as Creator, he has prepared his heart to reject God along every other line of human provision. If man came into existence, apart from the great I AM, he can continue his existence apart from Him.
2. Job said, "Thou hast clothed me." Job referred first of all to his skin, bones, and sinews. He felt that the God who had made him out of the clay, had clothed his body with everything necessary for its physical perfectness. This is true. Not only, however, does God clothe us with skin, but He clothes us with raiment.
The God we serve is the God who clothes the lily of the field. He is the God who feeds the birds of the air. There is not a sparrow that falls without His notice. Are we not of more value than the flowers of the field? and the birds of the air?
3. Job said, "Thou hast granted me life." The faith of Job recognized the hand of God in every favor that had been granted to him during the years of his sojourning. He acknowledged that God had preserved his spirit. He realized that apart from God, he would have known naught of blessing.
III. JOB'S HOPE OF SALVATION (Job 13:15-16)
1. Job's unswerving fidelity. We are all willing to grant the supremacy of Job's trial. Few, if any, among men, ever suffered more than he. Satan had blatantly said to God, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." Satan, under God's permission, had done his full part in touching Job's bones and flesh; and yet, in the height of Job's sore trial he said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
Let us ask ourselves the question, Do we possess a stronger faith? How many, in the hour of their affliction, complain at God? Some receive His good things without a word of praise; but the moment they suffer they complain.
2. Job's determinate purpose. Job said, "I will maintain mine own ways before Him." Come what may Job was determined to go through with the Lord. His face was set like a flint. His love and trust was unswerving. Even while he groaned under his burden, the eye of his faith pierced the clouds, and he renewed his vows.
In the Song of Songs is this statement, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." Job's life was a proof of this.
3. Job's certainty of salvation. In verse sixteen Job cried, "He also shall be my salvation." This prayer reminds us of the prayer of Jonah as he lay in the fish's belly, cast out of God's sight, and with the reeds wrapped about his neck. Jonah said, "Salvation is of the Lord."
IV. JOB'S VIEW OF THE LIFE TO COME (Job 14:14)
Job lay in shame and spitting, his body was so broken under the power of his disease, that men were astonished at him. Mark then Job's stirring words: "If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come."
Not for one moment should we imagine that Job's faith did not look through his grief and physical pain, to the hour of the resurrection. With his very being filled with hope, and with the intensity of undaunted faith, he cried, "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!"
What was it that so thrilled the sufferer, Job? What was it that he wanted written indelibly, so that the ages to come might know his faith?
1. Job wanted men to know his supreme assurance : "I know that my Redeemer liveth." We cannot but think of the blind man who did not know many things, but who said, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."
There were many things that Job did not know and could not understand; yet, one thing he did know, He knew that his Redeemer lived.
2. Job wanted men to know the basis of his hope: "That He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."
Job not only had a living Redeemer, but a Redeemer who was destined to come in the latter days, and stand upon the earth. We who love Job's Redeemer know also: "His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east."
3. Job wanted men to know the fruition of his hope: "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."
In after years Job's Redeemer said, "Because I live, ye shall live also." That was exactly what Job foresaw, and what Job wanted indelibly engraved on a rock. He knew that his Redeemer lived, and that his Redeemer would stand upon the earth. He knew, therefore, that he too should live; that his body, though destroyed by worms, should yet arise, and that he, in his flesh, should see God.
4. Job wanted men to know the personality of his hope. "Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me." Was ever faith more sublime? Was ever hope more undaunted? Did ever faith shine with a stronger hue, through darker clouds? Job could say, "Though my reins be consumed within me (that is, though my sorrows overwhelm me, and the bitterness of my cup engulf me), yet, through it all, beyond it all, and over it all, I, myself, and not another, in my behalf, shall see the Lord."
V. JOB'S SOUL LONGING AFTER GOD (Job 23:3)
There was no desire in Job's heart to rebel against God and to put God out of his life. He felt himself chastened, indeed, and sorely tried. He thought that God had lifted up His hand against him. Yet, Job's great spirit sought to kiss the hand that smote him. Job said, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat!"
Has your soul ever been athirst after God? Have you ever cried with the Psalmist? "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." Have you ever cried with the Shulamite and with Job? "I sought Him whom my soul loveth: I sought Him, but I found Him not."
1. Job sought the Lord for strength. Job said, "I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments."
Did Job think that God, like his false friends, would argue against him, and condemn him? Nay, Job said, "Will He plead against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength in me."
Was Job's idea of God not correct? Did the Lord not seek the prisoner to set him free? Did He not come to bind up the brokenhearted, and to proclaim, liberty to the captives? No man, suing for mercy and pleading grace, need have any fear in coming into the presence of God.
2. Job recognized God's leadership. Job looked on the left hand, but he beheld Him not. He looked on the right hand, but he could not see Him. Job moved forward, but God was not there, and backward, but he did not perceive Him. Nevertheless, though Job could not see God, he knew that God saw him, and with the exultant cry of confident faith, Job said, "He knoweth the way that I take."
3. Job had faith in his ultimate deliverance. Job said, "When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
Every trial for the present time seemeth grievous, but afterward it worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Job seemed to know that of which Peter afterward wrote, "The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while." How sublime the faith that could say, "I shall come forth as gold"!
AN ILLUSTRATION
Fourteen Japanese sailors were picked up in their lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific ocean after they had abandoned their ship which was disabled in a terrific storm. Earthly sailors do not know whether they will reach port when they embark. Storms may prevent them from reaching their desired haven. But the sailors of Jesus Christ, after having embarked on the good ship, Salvation, are sure that they will be able to weather all storms, and finally make port triumphantly, with banners flying and with a victorious shout of eternal safety. The certainty of this sure triumph gives us a brave heart to "fear none of the things which we shall suffer," for we know that the ship on which rides the "Captain of our Salvation" will outride all the waves that can come. Let us stick to the old ship. She will make port. C. S. B.