"Then Job replied, 'How you have helped the powerless! How you have saved the arm that is feeble! What advice you have offered to one without wisdom! And what great insight you have displayed! Who has helped you utter these words? And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?'" (Job 26:1-4, NIV)
The "spiritual friends" of Job were of not help, absolutely no help. Perhaps this would be good for all of us to ask of all of us, "Who has helped you utter these words? And whose spirit spoke from your mouth."
Read the Psalms, the Prophets, the Pentateuch, the whole Bible, for that matter. What we see is what Peter described as, "exceeding great and precious promises." But then, look at the history of the Jews and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ, a history strewn with what seems to be unfulfilled promises. There is a great command given us in the Book of James, "Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--- that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful." This is truth; other "stuff" is not.
Psalm 91 declares, "If you say, 'The Lord is my refuge,' and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent." Yet people pray for the sick; some are healed some are not. People give tithes and offerings, "sow seed" and do not get those $1000.00 checks in the mail. Now modern "faith" people do not deal with this stuff. They just keep stringing people along, not concerned with the disappointment with the "reaping," or the tragedy of "untimely deaths." It would be good, however, if the "disappointed" would start to think for themselves, would start to read the Bible, all of the Bible, "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Perhaps we would have less discouragement in the Church, less anger, less "burn out," less "Why does God do this to me," or, "allow this to happen to me?" I have no doubt that the Lord Jesus took me completely through His Words in a very short time that summer of '70 for this very reason. More "understanding" and "answers" to the above of life? No, just, "More love to Thee, O Christ, More love to Thee."
I am nearly finished with a book entitled The Holocaust, written by a biographer of Winston Churchill. I thought I knew of the suffering, the death camps, the crematoria, the families just like Andrew's, Shelly's, Jill's. At my age, I would have gone straight to the gas chamber. But the accounts and extent of the brutality, the fiendish delight in the German tormentors and torturers of the Jews as they bashed the heads of little "Lillians" against concrete walls, and not only the abuse of Jews, but also of Russian prisoners of war, the gypsies, Poles, etc., etc. The extent of the German cruelty is beyond astounding. Yet in the mist of unspeakable suffering, many Jews were praying, "the Words of God," Words which you and I read every day, promises which seemed to mock them. And many of these same Jews were among the ones who still believed the promises, still believed in the face of all worldly contradiction that The Eternal One is true, "His mercies are new every morning." And now? Well now we have what Jesus promised; Jews back in the Land; Jews who have come out of hell, from the literal "four corners of the Earth" to the "Land of Promise."
I could have given up for the same reasons that many have given up over the centuries. I could have become as cynical, disillusioned. But by the mercies of Jesus I am still here. Job's faith/obedience is an example to us all, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." There it is, my friend, a life modus operandi which will take you and me, "through the valley of the shadow of death"--------- to Glory.
Father, in Jesus' Name, "let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, 'that You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged.'" !! Amen.
The "spiritual friends" of Job were of not help, absolutely no help. Perhaps this would be good for all of us to ask of all of us, "Who has helped you utter these words? And whose spirit spoke from your mouth."
Read the Psalms, the Prophets, the Pentateuch, the whole Bible, for that matter. What we see is what Peter described as, "exceeding great and precious promises." But then, look at the history of the Jews and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ, a history strewn with what seems to be unfulfilled promises. There is a great command given us in the Book of James, "Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--- that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful." This is truth; other "stuff" is not.
Psalm 91 declares, "If you say, 'The Lord is my refuge,' and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent." Yet people pray for the sick; some are healed some are not. People give tithes and offerings, "sow seed" and do not get those $1000.00 checks in the mail. Now modern "faith" people do not deal with this stuff. They just keep stringing people along, not concerned with the disappointment with the "reaping," or the tragedy of "untimely deaths." It would be good, however, if the "disappointed" would start to think for themselves, would start to read the Bible, all of the Bible, "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Perhaps we would have less discouragement in the Church, less anger, less "burn out," less "Why does God do this to me," or, "allow this to happen to me?" I have no doubt that the Lord Jesus took me completely through His Words in a very short time that summer of '70 for this very reason. More "understanding" and "answers" to the above of life? No, just, "More love to Thee, O Christ, More love to Thee."
I am nearly finished with a book entitled The Holocaust, written by a biographer of Winston Churchill. I thought I knew of the suffering, the death camps, the crematoria, the families just like Andrew's, Shelly's, Jill's. At my age, I would have gone straight to the gas chamber. But the accounts and extent of the brutality, the fiendish delight in the German tormentors and torturers of the Jews as they bashed the heads of little "Lillians" against concrete walls, and not only the abuse of Jews, but also of Russian prisoners of war, the gypsies, Poles, etc., etc. The extent of the German cruelty is beyond astounding. Yet in the mist of unspeakable suffering, many Jews were praying, "the Words of God," Words which you and I read every day, promises which seemed to mock them. And many of these same Jews were among the ones who still believed the promises, still believed in the face of all worldly contradiction that The Eternal One is true, "His mercies are new every morning." And now? Well now we have what Jesus promised; Jews back in the Land; Jews who have come out of hell, from the literal "four corners of the Earth" to the "Land of Promise."
I could have given up for the same reasons that many have given up over the centuries. I could have become as cynical, disillusioned. But by the mercies of Jesus I am still here. Job's faith/obedience is an example to us all, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." There it is, my friend, a life modus operandi which will take you and me, "through the valley of the shadow of death"--------- to Glory.
Father, in Jesus' Name, "let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, 'that You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged.'" !! Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
