Read To Remember

(We will return to Job as the foreshadowing of Christ).

    Fellowship with God requires much remembrance.

    "I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember Thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all Thy work, and talk of Thy doings" (Psalm 77:11-12).

    Our awareness and experience of God's present working rests upon our confidence in His "wonders of old."  This relates primarily to the Scriptural record of God's involvement in the lives of His people.  How He worked in Abraham, Moses, Rahab, David, Daniel, Mary, John, Philip, Paul, and Peter reveals to us the truths that guide and inform our present experience of grace and truth in the Lord Jesus.  Not every detail of their experience applies to us, of course, but the underlying affirmations and insights concerning God's faithfulness prepares us for faithful response to Him.

    This need for recollection provides one of the primary reasons believers must consistently expose our hearts and minds to the Bible's pages.  We read in order to remember, and thus to ready ourselves for the blessings, challenges, responsibilities and relatings to God and man that life in Christ involves.  The older I get, the more I realize I must in some manner record things I want to remember.  I no longer trust my memory to keep important facts near enough in my consciousness for availability and usage.  This is always true in spiritual matters, and our Heavenly Father understands His sheep well enough to know our need for the record of His voice.  This He has given us in the gift of the Scriptures, and unto such grace and truth must we consistently avail ourselves if we are to "remember the works of the Lord" for the purpose of adequate response to His present working in our lives.

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope: it is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness."

(Lamentations 3:21-23)

"I remembered Thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself."

(Psalm 119:52)

Weekly Memory Verse

    And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

(II Thessalonians 3:5)

Job - The Foreshadowing Part 10

     Formerly blessed beyond measure, Job's trials drove him to a a despair that caused him to wish he had never existed.  "Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it" (Job 3:2-4).  

    The Lord Jesus Christ also experienced a heart so ravaged by sorrow that He cried out into the forlorn darkness - "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" (Matthew 27:46).

     Both men experienced a brokenness of heart that far outweighed their physical agonies.  The primary cause of such grief involved the loss of family.  In Job's case, the children whose spiritual welfare so concerned him apparently suffered the Divine chastening their father had long feared (Job 1:4-5).  He likely believed their deaths to have been the judgment of God, not knowing that God's enemy Satan actually perpetrated the tragedy that took their lives.  "The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me" (Job 3:25).  Recall in the narrative that the only fear Job expresses before his troubles involved the possibility that his sons may have cursed God during their frequent feasting.  Thus, Job likely perceived the heartbreaking loss of his offspring as the judgment of God upon his sons, and as the result of God rejecting the religious sacrifices Job made to defer such Divine wrath.  Again, this was not actually the case, but Job may well have believed it to be.  "The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me" (Job 6:4).  

   The Lord Jesus knew the same loss of family, but on a far greater scale.  Moreover, His suffering on the cross of Calvary actually involved the judgment and wrath of God.  Rather than experiencing His Father's love and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, our Savior felt the pain of being "smitten of God," and the agony of abandonment by Those from whom He had eternally known only affection, devotion, and perfect fellowship (Isaiah 53:4).  No heart has ever been so broken because no other being lost the reality and relationship of perfect love.  Indeed, as terrible as were Job's sorrows of loss, they do not compare with the agonies of Calvary and the Christ who died alone there for our sakes.  As the hymn writer beautifully and somberly depicts, "But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed, nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through e're He found His sheep that was lost" ("The Ninety and Nine," Elizabeth Clephane).

   We grieve with and for Job as we read his narrative.  We also recognize that his losses foreshadow Another who would suffer sorrow on a far greater scale and in a far deeper measure.  We cannot know the depth of such brokenness of heart in our Lord Jesus, but we can believe.  And we can bow in adoration, praise, and thanksgiving in this moment and forevermore for so great a sacrifice by so great a Savior…

"Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate... By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name."

(Hebrews 13:12; 15)

Weekly Memory Verse

    And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

(II Thessalonians 3:5)

Job - The Foreshadowing Part 9

    Job's terrible physical sufferings direct our attention to the bodily agonies experienced by the Lord Jesus Christ.

    "Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown" (Job 2:7).

    "His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men… They crucified Him" (Isaiah 52:14; Matthew 27:35).

    Smitten by boils to the degree of being unrecognizable, Job experienced pain and humiliation beyond description.  "I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.  My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome" (Job 7:4-5).  It's horrible even to imagine, and Job's frequent verbal expressions describing his agonies provide all the more awareness of the pain he must have known.

    Terrible as Job's sufferings were, and as disfigured as he was by the boils, Someone else knew greater physical pain and destruction.  "Marred more than any man" declares the prophet Isaiah of the Lord Jesus.  The New Testament's actual account of the Savior's sufferings is quite understated, but the Old Testament records with surprising clarity the record of beatings (with fists and rods), scourging, the plucking of His beard, the plating of a crown of thorns upon His brow, and the crucifixion.  Unlike Job, however, no Scriptural record exists of the Lord Jesus responding verbally to any aspect of the terrible assault He experienced.  On the contrary - "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).  Our Lord said nothing to His human attackers, nor did He voice complaint to His Father for allowing the savage cruelty and pain.

   I harbor no criticism of Job for his many expressions of grief and bewilderment regarding his sufferings.  Pain loosens our tongues to say much about how we feel.  However, I'm sure you join me in much awe and appreciation for the Lord Jesus, who uttered not a word of complaint or bitterness regarding the pains He suffered.  Indeed, His silence also stills our voices because what words can adequately tell the wonder of the quiet Lamb led to the slaughter?  He counted us worth the sufferings that purchased our redemption, and suffered without complaint because He loves us to the degree that "for the joy that we set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame" (Hebrews 12:2).  We are that "joy that was set before Him," and we are cause of so much pain as known by our Savior, and so few words spoken about it.

"Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again."

(I Peter 2:21-23)

Weekly Memory Verse

   By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.

(Hebrews 13:15)