JOB 19


1 Then Job answered and said,

2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?


We may not judge one another.‭ ‬The Lord will judge us all...

There is another class who require charity,‭ ‬but have a faculty of freezing up the article which they require:‭ ‬well-meaning blunderers,‭ ‬who with a very limited mental range,‭ ‬combine a strong propensity to peck,‭ ‬censure,‭ ‬and condemn.‭ ‬They have no apprehension of the wide ways of Providence,‭ ‬but look narrowly and judge very much on the surface of things.‭

Postulating first of all that no man should make the mistake of being deceived by others,‭ ‬and secondly that a man's mistakes cannot possibly be a factor in a divine problem,‭ ‬they launch out in virtuous condemnation of everything that they would not have done...‭

It must always be with the utmost modesty that we presume to suggest a Divine interpretation to the circumstances of our experience.‭ ‬When we stand accepted in the Lord's presence,‭ ‬we shall be able to look back and see exactly the Divine meaning of many things now obscure.‭

At present‭ (‬committing our way to God in the constant aim to obey Him‭) ‬all we can say is,‭ ‬it may be so.

The Christadelphian July 1896

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7 Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

JOB'S GREATEST AGONY: GOD'S SEEMING REJECTION


All forsook him in his extremity. But his greatest agony was not in his sufferings, nor in his rejection by all mankind, but God's apparent rejection and forsaking and enmity. Again and again he implores God for but one word of hope or comfort or recognition, but is met with total silence, and increased oppression. Even when he seeks brief, exhausted surcease in sleep, he is terrified with awful dreams (7:14).

To judge what he says, we must consider all he said, and the order in which he said it; just as we must consider the whole of Psalm 22, and not just the first few words from it that Christ quoted on the cross. It is all too easy to get his cries of anguish out of proportion, as if they were the studied and final conclusions reached coolly and theoretically in ease and comfort.

The fundamental fact is that Job held fast his trust in God, and would not deviate from his dedication to righteousness (which has no meaning outside of faith in God); and he was confident throughout of final resurrection, and of God's open manifestation to him at last.

There is no more triumphant victory of faith than is expressed in his memorable words, wrung from him In the depth of present despair--

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust him ... He also shall be my salvation!"

'"If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee. Thou wilt have a desire (kasaph: longing) to the work of Thine hands."

"I KNOW that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day UPON THE EARTH ... Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold" (13:15-16; 14:14-15; 19:25-27).