Finding God's Comfort'. 4
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CONFESSION AND RESTORATION
After Job's three friends had talked with him for a time, a new speaker appeared. This was Elihu. His anger was kindled both against Job and his three friends, and his speech was intended to justify God. He was a young man—but his words were wise and wonderfully full of instruction on the great problem of suffering.
Finally, God Himself answers Job out of the storm. Job is awed and humbled by the words of God, by the sense of his majesty and holiness, and he speaks penitently and softly. God spoke of his power, and Job said: "I know that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." Man's power is limited. We cannot do what we desire. Many of our purposes are restrained. We want to do good and beautiful things, and we try—but our achievements fall far below our aspirations. Our clumsy hands cannot fashion the lovely Christian character, that our hearts dreamed. Our faltering weakness cannot do the brave things our souls aspire to do.
No artist ever paints on his canvas—all the beauty of his ideal. No great singer ever expresses all the music that burns within him as he sings. No eloquent orator ever utters all that he feels, as he pleads for truth or for justice.
So in all our life—we do only a little of what we strive to do. We set out in the morning with purposes of usefulness, of true living, of gentle-heartedness, of patience, of victoriousness; but in the evenings we find only little fragments of these good intentions actually wrought out. Much of our living is but faded blossoms, which never grow into ripe fruit.
But it is not so with God. No purpose of his can be thwarted. His thoughts all take form. He speaks—and it is done. His intentions are all carried out. No power can withstand him or thwart his will. He does all his good pleasure. There is great comfort in this truth for us.
It was in this thought, that Job found peace after his long, sore trial. All things were in God's hands, and nothing could hinder his designs of love. There is comfort here for us. Our God is infinitely strong. He can do anything he wills to do. No human power can thwart any purpose of his. In all earthly confusions, strifes, troubles, sorrows—His hand moves, bringing good out of evil, gain out of loss, for those who trust in him. We need never be afraid to leave our life absolutely in God's keeping—for he is our Father and nothing can thwart his love for us!
The thought of God's majesty leads Job to confession: "Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not." That is the trouble with most of us. We talk about things—of which we know nothing. We chatter about God and God's ways—as if he were a next-door neighbor, just like ourselves, whose thoughts and plans and feelings and motives—we understand from our own. We seem to forget that he is infinitely greater than we are, that his ways are astonishing, past finding out. Zophar, in one of his speeches to Job, puts it thus: "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?" Job 11:7-8
Job himself, speaking of God's works in nature and in providence, adds, "These are but the fringes of His ways, merely a whisper of his power. Who can understand the thunder of his power?" Job 26:14
We ought to learn the lesson. God is not a man—not one of ourselves. If we could understand him—he would not be God. His greatness puts him beyond our comprehension. We cannot hope to know thereasons for his acts. Some of his ways with us—are strange ways. We are perplexed. We say, "God cannot love me—or he would not do these things, send these sorrows!" As if we could know why he does these inscrutable things! We ought to learn to trust God even in the deepest mysteries, not expecting to know—but sure of his love and goodness, even when it is darkest and when his face is veiled in most impenetrable mists. We ought to be silent unto God—even when we cannot understand. That is the truest faith.
Job was not satisfied with anything short of most humble confession: "My ears had heard of you—but now my eyes have seen you! Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes!" Job 42:5-6. That is always the way. Seeing God, humbles us. When we are far from God—we see only dim revealings of him, and have no true conception of his glory and holiness. The stars we see in the heavens are really vast suns, like our own—and much larger and brighter. But to our eyes they appear as only little points of light, because of their immense distance from us. Yet if we could fly away through space and draw near to them, they would appear more and more brilliant, until, at length, their radiance would dazzle and blind us.
So it is, that men are not impressed with the greatness and the majesty of God—while they are far from him. But as they come near to him—he is revealed to them in glory and grandeur, and this revelation shows them their own littleness, their own sinfulness. The more we know of God—the less do we think of ourselves. When Isaiah saw the vision of God in the temple, he cried, "Woe is me I for I am undone! because I am a man of unclean lips—for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!"
Once when Jesus had wrought a miracle—filling the nets of the disciple-fishermen; Peter fell down on his knees and said, "Depart from me—for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" The work of power had given Peter a glimpse of the glory—the deity of Christ—and the revealing had shown the disciple such a sight of his own unworthiness, that could not endure the holy presence. Yet, the humbling experience is most wholesome. It is only as we learn our own true condition—that we grow in spiritual life. Seeing Christ—transforms us into his own likeness—by showing us our sins, and leading us to depart from them—and by showing us his blessed beauty, and drawing us toward it.
God was pleased with Job's sincerity and humility—but he was displeased with Job's friends, and he said to them, "I am angry with you, because you have not spoken of me what is right." We must be careful never to misrepresent God. We must be careful not to profess to be his interpreters, telling others what God means, why he does this or that—lest we speak wrongly of him. The friends of Job made that mistake. They thought they understood God's meaning and purposes in Job's trials, and they pressed the thoughts upon the suffering man, adding to his pain and grief. But they had spoken of that of which they knew nothing, and had done only harm. We had better not try to explain God's meanings in his darker providences. We may interpret them wrongly, thus misrepresenting and dishonoring God—and hurting feeble, sensitive souls. We had better leave God to be his own interpreter.
God did not turn from the friends, without a message of comfort: "My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly." It is a great thing to have for a friend—one who has God's ear. We think ourselves happy, when we need a great favor, if we have a friend in high places who can speak for us with his influence. Still greater privilege is it when we have anintercessor who can present our names to heaven's King, and whose voice has power with God. There are human friends who can, and do serve us in this way. They lie near to the heart of Christ and can speak to God—sure of being heard. "The supplication of a righteous man avails much."
When the telegraph brought me the word that my mother was dead, my first flash of thought was a sense of the loss of her prayers for me. But the best intercessor we can have—is he who died for us and yetrose again, and who ever lives to make intercession for us. "If any man sins—we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The Father hears Him always. Blessed are those for whomJesus prays.
Job did as God suggested. He prayed for his friends, and his prayer for others brought blessing to himself: "Jehovah restored his prosperity of Job—when he prayed for his friends." This is an important statement. There seems to have been a barrier in the way of the blessing on Job, which was not removed until he began to pray for his friends. Probably he had a feeling of unkindness in his heart toward them, because of what they had said to him about his trials and the reasons for them. We are not surprised that Job felt in this way toward his friends, for they were not wise and gentle comforters, and they doubtless gave him more pain than they soothed. A good many people who try to be comforters, only lay thorns under aching heads—instead of a soft pillow.
No art needs a more delicate touch, than the art of being a comforter. The hands of most of us are too rough and clumsy to be laid on throbbing human hearts, in efforts to soothe their pain. No wonder Job felt that his friends were miserable comforters, and that he was not at first in a mood to pray for them. But until he could pray for them, blessing could not come to him. Unloving hearts cannot receive God's divine love
The lesson is for us. Others may have injured us or grieved us in some way, and we may not be ready to forgive them. But while we feel so—we are shutting divine blessing away from ourselves. Job's praying at length for his friends, showed that his heart was now softened toward them, that its bitterness was gone, that he had forgiven their cruel words and taken them back into his heart. Then blessing came to him, as God restored his prosperity. Just so, when we can pray for one who has wronged us, or misjudged us, or said unkind things of us—we are in a condition to receive blessing from God.
Job was also ready now to come out of his sorrow, to try to help others. This, too, is a good thing. We do not find comfort by staying in the darkness of our own grief, by thinking only of it; we must forget ourselves, and begin to serve others and seek their good before we can find the light of God's comfort. Selfishness in sorrow is—selfishness, and selfishness in any form, misses God's blessing. We begin to find joy—only when in self-forgetfulness, we begin to help others.
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