You Are NOT Alone
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YOU ARE NOT ALONE
March 16th will be week four of our all-church study on the Book of Job. It’s been great so far. Still, I can’t wait until we arrive at the final five chapters. In them, we will see the LORD’s resplendent and reassuring omnipotence. Nevertheless, the beginning chapters of Job are not comforting. They’re ominous, sort of how some think of March 15th.
So, let’s take a short detour.
Did you know the 15th day of March
is also known as the Ides of March? Maybe “you’ve…heard the soothsayer’s
warning to Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s play of the same name: ‘Beware
the Ides of March…’”[1] immortalizing the
assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. However, originally, “…Ides
simply referred to the first full moon of a given month. Since the Roman
calendar was based on lunar cycles, a full moon usually fell between the 13th
and 15th. In fact, the Ides of March once signified the new year…”[2]
So, the Ides of March, like Job, started off
good. Job was a kind and wealthy man with seven sons and three daughters. But
all too soon, Satan got involved. “Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you
considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a
blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”[3]
An impressive resumé, right?
Yet God allowed Job to be tested in a way no
one on earth would ever want to be tested. He granted Satan permission to
obliterate Job’s possessions, his ten children, and his health. Still, in all
Job’s pain, he did not sin.
For months, Job suffered the grief of losing
his children and the excruciating pain of putrid boils from head to toe. As he
sat in the ash heap, scraping his wounds with a shard of broken pottery, his
friends came to visit.
In an effort to comfort him, they sat in
silence for seven days. But on day eight, veiled insults began. Job answers
each in succession while holding onto his integrity, rebuking them at times,
and even including intermittent prayers. Although these so-called friends think
Job’s sin was why he suffered, and they do utter some truths, most of the
things they say are not true of God or Job.
Finally, out of His opulent majesty, the LORD
Himself speaks. In His questioning, He opens Job’s spiritual eyes to His glory
and allows us a peek too. With this, we, together with Job, see our true
selves. And as we do, our heart is pierced with the knowledge that even though
we may feel blameless and upright, compared to the
Holy God, our righteous acts are as filthy rags.[4]
Following his new revelation, Job repents in
dust and ashes. God then reprimands Job’s friends and allows Job to pray for
them. In the end, “…the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his
beginning…”
While things worked out well for Job, no one
lives forever. Neither did Job. The final verse reads, “So, Job died, old
and full of days.”
However, trials and troubles don’t always end
with a double blessing. Things for us could resolve quickly or be rough for a
long time. Either way, we must remember this is not our home. We are just
passing through. Like Abraham, we await that “…city…whose builder and maker
is God.”[5]
Second, even when life is difficult, God is in
it with us. How do I know? Because God, who breathed out our Bible, said so.
King David penned, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”[6]
Life is full of tribulations. David knew it,
and on this side of the cross, true believers know it even better, for the Holy
Spirit lives within. The Almighty who created, formed, redeemed you, and called
you by your name says, “Fear not…you are Mine.” When rivers of troubles
seek to overflow, or the flames of grief and pain are determined to scorch, God
says, you will not drown nor be burned.
Why?
You are
not alone.
The LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel,
your Savior,
is with you in
them. [7]
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