What Goes Up Must Come Down

Job 40:1 Moreover the Lord answered Job, and said: 2 "Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it."

3 Then Job answered the Lord and said: 4 "Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth. 5 Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further."

6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: 7 "Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me: 8 "Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?

This is the framework of the 'sinner’s prayer.' (The prayer anyone and anyone MUST make in order to receive salvation.) The most fundamental change that takes place in the life of a true believer comes in the comparison of one’s life to the perfection of God. (My profane-ness to God’s holiness.) This must happen in order for anyone to come into the kingdom of Heaven.

The vile root being ‘gotten at’ by God is pride. That root of pride is a wicked and vile possession of the human heart, and is present in everyone – even Job.

God hates pride because it keeps men from God. Pride makes men make gods of themselves. You cannot worship God when you are worshiping yourself – which explains why God commands we worship Him – that we not worship ourselves.

Job, in the midst of his struggle and affliction, (which is great and terrible in its scope and affect,) has very naturally retreated to the place all humans retreat to: judging God. This is the place we all retire to, especially when things are not going well - especially when we judge ourselves as being worthy of having things go well.

“God should be doing better by me than He is.” “God should not have allowed that to happen to those people.” “God should not have allowed that war to begin.” “God should not have allowed that child to perish.”

All of those statements reflect our answers to the great questions of life…those concerns over fairness and equity and justice, especially for “pretty good people.” When we pose these kinds of questions we are really expressing grave doubts based on the concern we have our questions will never and can never be answered. But when confronted with the literal presence of the living God, all our questions melt away in the power of His holiness, and we fall on our face in repentance for any questions we may ever have expressed or thought. Rather than providing any answers – we find God is the Answer. He is, quite simply – Enough.

- Pastor Bill

Spit On

Job 30:1 "But now they mock at me, men younger than I, Whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock. 2 Indeed, what profit is the strength of their hands to me? Their vigor has perished. 3 They are gaunt from want and famine, Fleeing late to the wilderness, desolate and waste, 4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And broom tree roots for their food. 5 They were driven out from among men, They shouted at them as at a thief. 6 They had to live in the clefts of the valleys, In caves of the earth and the rocks. 7 Among the bushes they brayed, Under the nettles they nestled. 8 They were sons of fools, Yes, sons of vile men; They were scourged from the land. 9 "And now I am their taunting song; Yes, I am their byword. 10 They abhor me, they keep far from me; They do not hesitate to spit in my face. 11 Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me, They have cast off restraint before me. 12 At my right hand the rabble arises; They push away my feet, And they raise against me their ways of destruction.

“That’s life…that’s what they say…ridin’ high in April, shot down in May…”

Job here reveals the worst of the worst of human experiences, and that is the loss of any respect by anyone he knows. Of all he has suffered, this sense of loss must surely be the greatest of all, in the worldly sense. Left alone in his suffering, left alone in his pain, counseled as if he were a sinner, (even though he is not,) and now disrespected to the point of ridicule and the greatest demonstrations of shame imaginable.

Spit on. Tripped and laughed at as he falls. An object of derision. A hissing. One who had been beloved by all, now treated as if he were disgusting and detestable to all.

This description found in Job 30 comes the closest in the Bible, (I think,) to the suffering and shame Jesus endured in the hours before He was nailed to the cross.

Like Job, Jesus had been the greatest ‘man’ of His time, speaking before massive crowds, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and finally riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey’s colt being proclaimed by a mass crowd as the “King of the Jews!” That was Sunday. By Thursday Jesus had been arrested, stripped, whipped, beaten, and stood with a bag over His head in the center of a circle of soldiers who were bashing His head with as if with a baseball bat - all the while mocking Him and challenging Him to prophesy about where the next blow would come from. They robed Him in purple, put a crown of thorns upon His head, and they spit in His face. Once surrounded by large crowds, (and His disciples,) Jesus was now completely alone. Not even His friends or His family could or would be with Him now.

Job’s story now has a very familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?

- Pastor Bill

Finding God

Job 23:8 "Look, I go forward, but He is not there, And backward, but I cannot perceive Him; 9 When He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; When He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. 10 But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. 11 My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. 12 I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. 13 "But He is unique, and who can make Him change? And whatever His soul desires, that He does.

When we face times of trouble, it is almost certain we will be forced to seek relief outside of ourselves. There is no one we know who can genuinely help us, (at least as far as resolving all the very-real problems we face,) but we have learned there is something very healing and helpful about being able to talk to someone who is compassionate to our greatest felt needs.

Now, if only those compassionate persons we speak with in times of trouble could really do more than listen! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to speak to someone who could heal you? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to speak to someone who could take away your grief? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to speak with someone who could absolve your debt, or ease your pain, or take away all your worries and concerns for your family, or the world?

Imagine if somehow you may be ushered into the presence of the Living God. For the purpose of illustration, imagine if you could crawl up on God’s lap, just like He was a department store Santa Claus. You could ask Him to solve whatever problem you may have…

Wouldn’t that be wonderful – and wouldn’t that give you total confidence all your problems were at an end? If only you could see God, and have the ability to speak to Him and let Him know what is going wrong in your life…?

Unfortunately, many, if not most, Christians do have this concept of God as being a kind-of Santa Claus. I think the lines may be blurred because of the presence of St. Nick in our upbringing. Who knows? But the point is we must have more than a crisis God who appears as necessary to us only when our lives are completely upside down. Job is facing the worst problems he has ever faced, and he knows not where to find God. He has kept all the rules to the best of his ability, but all of his rule-keeping has not produced an ability to see God or know where He may be found.

The word of God Job speaks of is designed to produce in us more than a “rules-keeping” mentality, where keeping rules merits favor and breaking rules means pain and suffering. (Switches and ashes.) The true purpose is to know God, and to know WHERE He may be found in time of need – in His Word, by truly understanding we are ALWAYS in time of need. The Word is where God may be found. Have you found Him there?

- Pastor Bill

This I Know

Job 19:23 "Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! 24 That they were engraved on a rock With an iron pen and lead, forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God,27 Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

I wonder what it would look like if my words were written in a book. Have you ever thought about that? (Having your words recorded for all time for all for all to read and study and meditate over?) Is that really the kind of thing you might wish for?

If all of your words were recorded, what would they look like? Would your words at church look different than your words at home? Would your words in prayer look different that your words at work? Would your words in worship look different than your words in the video store? If so, why would that be?

One of the things I admire most about Job is his honesty and integrity. It is thought by his friends Job MUST be a hypocrite - as evidenced by the fact his family and all his possessions have been taken from him, and he writhes in pain, covered by boils from head to toe. The natural assumption is he is being punished by God. Therefore since Job has always portrayed himself as a follower of God, he must have been a hypocrite all along, and God has finally had enough with his “act” and is punishing him justly.

But if you think about it, Job’s words, (that fortunately ARE recorded for us to see,) reveal Job to be anything but a hypocrite. Job is so pure in his integrity he is not only honest and up-front with his words to his friends, he is honest and up-front in his words to God. How much LESS of a hypocrite could he possibly be?

I think of the duality often evidenced by our nature. Like the book of James says, we often have blessings and cursings streaming from the same well-spring – that being our mouth. Jesus said that “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. It is not what goes into a man that defiles a man; it is what comes out of a man that defiles a man.”

If you really think about it, what would be the point of faking your words to God, since He already knows the content of your heart? Can we really praise God while at the same time holding bitter complaints against Him in our heart that He does not know of? Job never even attempts it. He knows God so well he knows he can be honest with his complaints against God, even in the midst of a situation he does not understand. Does that sound like a hypocrite? One of the things we must say about Job is that he holds back nothing – knowing there is no point in doing so. While not an enviable pattern for us to follow, it is at the very least an honest one. One thing we can be certain of – ALL our words ARE known to God.

- Pastor Bill

Incomparable God

Job 9:1 Then Job answered and said: 2 "Truly I know it is so, But how can a man be righteous before God? 3 If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand. 4 God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against Him and prospered? 5 He removes the mountains, and they do not know When He overturns them in His anger; 6 He shakes the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble; 7 He commands the sun, and it does not rise; He seals off the stars; 8 He alone spreads out the heavens, And treads on the waves of the sea; 9 He made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south; 10 He does great things past finding out, Yes, wonders without number. 11 If He goes by me, I do not see Him; If He moves past, I do not perceive Him; 12 If He takes away, who can hinder Him? Who can say to Him, 'What are You doing?'

One of the great lessons we learn from the book of Job is the incomparable nature of God. Who can He be compared to? Who can understand Him? Who can approach His power? Who can fully perceive His wisdom? Who can approach His holiness?

Most people in the history of the world have been left unsatisfied by these questions. But, in reality, who truly knows himself or herself, and understands their own inner workings? (A strange question to ponder, no doubt.) The truth is there is a whole lot about me I know nothing about.

I have no idea how my eyeballs work, or my hearing, touch, smell, you name it. No idea. I have no idea what it is that prompts me to breathe. I don’t even think about breathing. It just happens. How can I walk without looking down? Where does balance come from? Why do I love those I love?

It seems to me since so much of my own make-up is such a mystery, (and there is MUCH more to be said about this,) that the Lord God Almighty being a mystery should come as no surprise.

And yet, the vast majority of people worship a god of their own making simply because a god of their own making is a god they can see, touch, and understand. This is the product of all of the world’s great religions: a god the people can understand – even if they cannot know the god they have created. (After all, you cannot know a fictitious anything - let alone a fictitious god.)

By contrast, the God of the Bible, the God of all Creation, is a God we cannot begin to understand – but is a God we CAN know - because He IS real, and because He seeks relationship with man. How blessed we are to serve a God we can know even if we serve a God we cannot understand - a God Who is beyond understanding. Better yet is the benevolence of the God we serve. Since He has allowed us to know Him, He has revealed Himself to be a loving God. What could be better than that, ESPECIALLY in a time of trial?

- Pastor Bill