(Job’s) Prayer for Help, and Praise for Its Answer.

A Psalm of (Job first?) then David.

28 To you I call, O Lord,
My rock, do not be deaf to me,
For if You are silent to me,
I will become like those who go down to the pit (grave).
² 
Hear the voice of my supplication (specific requests, humble entreaties) as I cry to You for help,
As I lift up my hands and heart toward Your innermost sanctuary (Holy of Holies).

Job was a righteous man before God. Job was a prosperous man, a family man. It was a good life for Job, he was confident in how he was living that life. It seemed that nothing could go wrong that could not be effectively, efficiently, handled. I can see Job, even be jealous of Job for living such an endlessly successful life.

We want to move into Job’s home. We want to live and prosper like Job lived and prospered. It is everybody’s lifelong dream to model their whole lives as Job did. We have control over what happens around us. God is Good and it shows daily.

Until that goodness of God suddenly disappears faster than we can blink an eye.

It does not just disappear at warp speed; it disappears in the most traumatic of ways. The whirlwind of trauma grows ever stronger and its more unstoppable than we could ever have allowed ourselves to imagine possible. Levels of trauma from which there’s no apparent avenue of recovery, can things get even worse?

Suddenly, there seems to be no words which are sufficient to respond with. It suddenly becomes a giant vacuum for which words seem to get stuck within us. Suddenly this “growing zone of silence” is introducing itself, surrounding us.

The inevitable question is “Why Me? Why Now, come on explain yourself God “

What does Job hope to hear?

Job is sure of God’s response because Job is “faith on steroids” and he knows God is always responsive to the max with those who are faithful to God. But all Job hears is complete silence from God and the bleating voices of his friends.

Not exactly what Job desires, wants or needs to hear in this ultra-critical “Faith shaping” time and season. Job’s problem is that he has no way to examine God, to “Call God Out” and that is what he goes on to state in very eloquent terms.

Exasperated, He says that God’s wisdom is beyond man: How can you get hold of a God like that to debate with Him the issues that are causing the pain of life?

What can I do?

How can I get at this whole “God is Silent” problem? 

Exasperated, Job makes his case before his friends and before his God.

AND BEFORE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US RIGHT THIS EXACT MOMENT!

Job 9:1-12 Amplified Bible

Job Says There Is No Arbitrator between God and Man

9 Then Job answered and said,

² 
“Yes, I know it is true.
But how can a mortal man be right before God?
³ 
“If one should want to contend or dispute with Him,
He could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
⁴ 
“God is wise in heart and mighty in strength;
Who has [ever] defied or challenged Him and remained unharmed?
⁵ 
“It is God who removes the mountains, and they do not know it,
When He overturns them in His anger;
⁶ 
Who shakes the earth out of its place,
And its pillars tremble;
⁷ 
Who commands the sun, and it does not shine;
Who seals up the stars [from view];
⁸ 
Who alone stretches out the heavens
And tramples down the ^[a]waves of the sea;
⁹ 
Who made [the constellations] the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades,
And the [vast starry] spaces of the south;
¹⁰ 
Who does great things, [beyond understanding,] unfathomable,
Yes, marvelous and wondrous things without number.
¹¹ 
“Behold, He passes by me, and I do not see Him;
He moves past me, but I do not perceive Him.
¹² 
“Behold, He snatches away; who can restrain or turn Him back?
Who will say to Him, ‘What are You doing?’

The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

Job has decisions to he has make in assessing and evaluating and living out his relationship with God and with mankind. Job deeply needs to hear from God.

He asserts his desire to hear from the Lord who has ever been 100% faithful to him, he asserts his desire to let God know he intends to be ever the more faithful in spite of all the absolute mess that is whirling, swirling, going on around him

Out of the deep darkness that surrounds this “patient” suffering saint, comes a ray of light breaking through. It is the first significant break in Job’s gloom. 

Job’s realization, acknowledgement, what is needed is a mediator, an arbitrator who can come between man, who understands us both and brings us together, 

Job says. For the first time in this book, we begin to see what God is producing in this man, why he is putting him through this protracted trial.

For now, Job begins to feel, deep in his bones, the nature of reality: the terrible gulf between the pleas of man and God that must be bridged by another party.

We who live in the full light of the New Testament know that he is crying out and feeling deep within the need for just such a mediator as Jesus himself.

Job is laying the foundation here in his own understanding for the tremendous revelation that comes in the New Testament when God hears, becomes a man.

When we in our sin believe with all of our heart God has suddenly gone silent,

God Absolutely Listens!

God Absolutely Hears!

God Absolutely Acts!

God Absolutely Intercedes in the affairs of Mankind

God Absolutely Sent His Son at the appropriate time.

God takes our place, God lives as we live, feels as we feel, solves the great problem between us and God, and brings the two—God and man—together.

For the first time in the long suffering words and pleas of Job and his friends, we begin to sense something mighty is taking shape, what God is driving at.  

Psalm 119:65-72 Authorized (King James) Version

ט  Teth

⁶⁵ Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord,
according unto thy word.
⁶⁶ Teach me good judgment and knowledge:
for I have believed thy commandments.
⁶⁷ Before I was afflicted, I went astray:
but now have I kept thy word.
⁶⁸ Thou art good, and doest good;
teach me thy statutes.
⁶⁹ The proud have forged a lie against me:
but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
⁷⁰ Their heart is as fat as grease;
but I delight in thy law.
⁷¹ It is good for me that I have been afflicted;
that I might learn thy statutes.
⁷² The law of thy mouth is better unto me
than thousands of gold and silver.

You and I can learn theology from a book, and we can study it and get it clear in your mind, but until you go through the hurts and difficulties and trials of life.

We never really understand what God’s truth is. It takes suffering to get a clear vision of what God is saying to us, and that is what the book of Job is all about.

Because we live in a fallen world, there will be times in our life when we will all have to endure trials and difficulty. Job went through such a time; however, he realized that had Someone to stand in his defense. Job called Him his Redeemer.

Job’s suffering helped inform and shape and transform his understanding of the Whole truth of God. The New Testament reveals far more of who God is.

How might Job’s experience, his friends’ experiences, inform, shape and transform our own personal understanding of the “silence” of our God???

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

God of truth, sometimes I am not sure if I’m actually hearing your voice, or if it’s just my own sinful thoughts, my friends’ thoughts or even another spirit.

Please God, sharpen my spiritual hearing, Lord, so I can recognize your words when you are speaking to me.

Author of my Life, Shaper of my heart and my soul, help me know it’s really you, with no long shadow of doubt or reason for any of my second-guessing.

When I’m asking for your guidance in important decisions, by your mercy, give me your place of peace that surpasses understanding with your answer. Help me remember that your words to me will never go against your written word in the Bible. Give me a clear mind and push out all my confusion. Alleluia! Amen.

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