This article was written against the devastating backdrop of the tornadoes that hit the state of Alabama in July 2012. We must never forget where our Great God has taken us and from whence He has delivered us. For it is all relevant in the light of Eternity.
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… the where, what, who, how, and when of it … (Job 1)
Where do we run?
What do we do?
Who can we trust?
How will we
survive?
When will we ever
learn?
In times like these
it’s all too easy to be clichéd. To offer up truisms that, by now, are
nauseating and trite. These are legitimate questions, and to a people hurting
because they’ve lost everything, surely there are answers that hold credibility
and that will offer substance to see them through. I’ve spent some days
ministering not only to my church family, but to others who’ve needed me in the
aftermath of the storms that recently ravaged our corner of the South.
I’ve heard these words over and over
again: “We had to leave everything we worked hard for—we had to run, but what do
you do when there’s no place to run?”
Looking around, watching as looters
dig around in the sticks and dust of their once worldly possessions the next
question becomes, “Who can we trust? Will everything be scavenged? Will there
be someone to help?”
And possibly the most poignant of
all questions is this: “How will we survive? We’ve lost it all.”
You may know by now I’m going to
take you to possibly the most ancient of books—a dramatic account written
before the giving of the law, written with the godly personage of Job as the
central figure. This is the book to visit if you are in the valley of
discouragement because everything you’ve accumulated over a lifetime, including
most of your family, is gone. Job will answer your questions with his life and
passion.
The short of it I will sum up in a
few points.
(1)
There
must be a Devotion to God (Job 1:20).
(2)
There
must be a Dependence upon God
(1:21-22).
(3)
There
must be a Diligence before God
(2:8-10).
(4)
There
must be a Declaration about God
(2:10).
Job was dubbed the greatest of all
the men of the East. He had seven sons, three daughters and earthly possessions
inexplicable. In the space of Chapter 1, he lost all his children, his
livestock, his servants at the hand of Satan in what we understand as the
permissive will of God. Ouch! Don’t try to figure it out. You can’t. But in all
of this, Job … rent his mantle, and
shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped.
To put it into modern-day vernacular
(well, in comparison to Job and when it all took place for him), think about
the account in Luke when Jesus said to Peter, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I
have prayed for you, that your faith fail not … (22:31-32). Since God
removed Lucifer from heaven when he usurped power, the Enemy of our souls has
been busy going to and fro in the earth, hoping, wishing to devour those who
show an interest in knowing Christ in his fullness. Hence, his attack on Job.
Think about Job as representing you in your trials.
In 21-22, Job articulates his
dependence upon God when he said, … naked
came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. In all
this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
In the daily practicality of facing
the loss of family, servants, and personal possessions, Satan attacked again.
This time, he took Job’s health. Nothing like kicking a man when he’s down for
the count. His wife, who was spared in all of the disaster, makes a foolish
suggestion. Mrs. Job should have been praying and listening for God’s
instruction; instead she said this, Job,
do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die. Between his wife and
three of his so-called friends—the likes of whom, if they are of the friends
type, who needs enemies— Job was getting a lot of bad advice. You know the
story, because you’ve been there, no doubt.
Again, Job is in Satan’s sifter,
still declaring his determination to trust God. He said to his wife, you speak as one of the foolish women speak.
What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?
In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
You must read the entire piece of dramatic poetry to
see how God lovingly and generously replaced all that Satan had taken. God blessed the latter end of Job more than his
beginning, allowing him to live an additional hundred and forty years with
sons and daughters and grandchildren to four generations. He died old and full of days.
So what does this have to do with
you and me when we’ve lost it all? Well, I’ve been there to a large degree, yet
not to the extent of Job. Only to me, and at the time, I felt like Job. In
times like these before we can have devotion, dependence, diligence and
declaration—we must first make a decision.
We must decide that to know him in
the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering is the
first step in a life worth living before, during, or after disaster.
Nothing—let me say it again—nothing that has ever happened to us has even come
close to the suffering of the Cross.
When will we ever learn? It is
personal. And think about this, Job and we are saved the same way—Job, by
looking forward to the Cross of Calvary; we, by looking back to the Cross and what
Christ did for us. Of a truth, we can say with Isaiah: … he was wounded for our transgressions (yours, mine, Job’s); he was bruised for our iniquities (yours,
mine, Job’s); the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we (Job, you, and I) are healed (53.5). He bore it all for
us so that he could give us grace for every need, grace sufficient to endure
every trial of life, even to the point of losing it all. We view it all in the
light of eternity with him. Praise God!
Victor
W. Baugh, Sr., Th.D., Ph.D.
Pastor,
St. Luke AME Church
Havana,
AL
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