The Devotional - 43

The Devotional

Comment:

Time has the power to erase many of the sorrowful and painful events of life; that is, if we allow time to do that. For some, these folks will cling to the emotional trauma for the remainder of life. Psalm 127:2 says “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late and to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep” NKJV. In the context of this Psalm of Solomon we see that the LORD gives us ability to raise a family in the midst of hardships, hardships of all sorts. Many of these circumstances are crippling and there is the need to mourn. Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 is a list by Solomon of the seasons of time in one’s life, which if we dwell or toil in the work developed by those seasons is an unbearable burden for the soul. Also Matthew 11:25-30 Jesus provides the solution for healing. There is no “magic bullet” but there is a poetic sense of wisdom that we can find just as Job finds as his healing process begins in chapters 27-31 coming up.

Challenge: Job 27-31

Job feels forgotten by God, that the LORD has turned His back to him making Job taste the bitterness of soul that he has actually been afraid of up to this point in time. Question: Have you some lingering fear that seems to surround your faith? Fear is a besetting (constantly harassing) sin. The only way to have victory over such battles of faith is for God to take you through the very thing you fear. God has taken many people through tough times; but in Him all have witnessed to the VICTORY He has given; see Hebrews 12.

Job contemplates the reasoning of those around him and the godless people of his day and he questions; in the midst of all of the turmoil of living will anyone call upon God? Job has not lost his ability to teach in the midst of his own struggle for comfort, nor should we and the truth is that as we heal, our capacity for teaching and training others in righteousness should be preciously sharper and clearer, being refined in the fire.

As Job begins to reflect on the Wisdom of God and after listening to his friends he is reminded that the hidden Wisdom of God is searchable, like one who is a miner for gold, of precious metals and jewels. The miner will face blood, sweat and tears. Also there is extreme darkness, but as Job has seen with his eyes these are men also capable to use the metals hidden in the earth. As it is possible to do this task, it is also possible to search for the Wisdom of God that useable for every needed moment in life.

We will not get far this morning into these five chapters (27-31) as we have briefly scanned 27 and 28, but I think that what we are looking at is important. If I am a miner for gold, all other precious metals will not be interesting to me even though I may past by another type of ore. So if I am searching in the Word of God for a specific bit of wisdom on life, I will pass over many other bits of wisdom. Sometimes if we are alert, we may make note of another lode, but mostly we are so involved with our main topic, others are simply passed by, darkness is involved and yet the hidden wisdom of God is there and he provides light when needed.

The multitude of people do not go where the miner goes, once man goes deeper, beyond where the earth can produce food and oxygen, Job says that the transformation rocks is then by fire, a fire that along with pressure produces diamonds and gold nuggets. Such wisdom of 3,500 years ago in many ways is greater than our super highway of wisdom today. In the Wisdom applied by Job, just in these few verses of chapter 28 we can see clearly that much of mankind is satisfied with a bit of food and air to breath. But those who seek the precious Word of God, those who dig deeper will by God’s permission suffer for righteousness sake.

Now folks I have only been very brief in this, but if one were willing they could spend a lifetime searching the scripture subject by subject, if they did so, they would be surrounded, not by any pending fear, but they would be surrounded with Words of victory, such as the words of Psalm 19, written by King David. Creation reveals the Glory of God and the study of His Word reveals the radiant goodness of God to those who Fear Him and radiance of God’s Word endures forever.