Learning From Job To Trust God In Time Of Trial

This Month’s Caribbean Pioneer article advances affluence as the most difficult condition for the disciple to survive without compromising godliness. That may be the case, but this month’s readings in Job take us through what surely must be another of the most difficult trials a person can suffer: terrible calamity and suffering without having any idea what God is doing.

Not knowing the prologue

If Job, his wife, the three friends and Elihu had only known what was going on, the entire discussion would have changed. Instead of the arguments swirling around Job’s righteousness, or lack thereof, they would have centered on the wisdom of God’s initiative with Satan.

No doubt they would have known such a widely traveled person, for the adversary went “to and fro in the earth.” Doubtless they would have a range of opinions as to whether he was worth saving. And for certain they would have varied widely in their opinion of the righteousness of God in His bringing suffering on Job so that a sinner, and the class he represented, might be persuaded to live truly upright lives.

God’s initiative

Here is one of the keys to the book. God takes the first step in drawing the adversary’s attention to upright Job. “And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job…” (Job 1:8). Why does God do this?

We know God was not bragging to a supernatural devil about His righteous servant. In the first place, there is no such being. Secondly, the adversary is completely dependent on the Lord God to bring any adversity on Job (Job 2:5); he evidently has no supernatural power of his own.

We know God is not discussing Job with one of the angels, for this adversary is bitter and cruel and would rejoice if Job turned against God (1:11; 2:5). Angels do not want believers to curse God as they are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. I :14).

To us, the evidence seems clear that the adversary was a smug, cynical contemporary of Job who felt the only profit in serving God was in temporal blessings. Endeavoring to convert the adversary to a better way, the Lord urges him to look to a complete and upright man who truly feared God. That, of course, is a very common divine method as throughout scripture God sets before us upright conduct that we may learn from and emulate it.

Yet neither Job, nor any of the others, knew anything about this. They knew nothing about calamity on Job coming as a result of God’s initiative with the adversary.

The righteous suffer for the wicked

Would God cause a righteous person to suffer that sinners might be saved? Yes, we know He would. The Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme example: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The apostle Paul himself would say, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of his body” (Col. 1:24 NKJV). All the apostles knew that in bringing the gospel to others they would be afflicted, and “hated of all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt. 24:9).

Job’s case was different, however. The Lord and the apostles knew what was going on: They knew they were suffering that others might be saved. Job did not know this. In fact, one of the points Job needed to learn was that God’s concerns were much wider than his own. Job was concerned for his family and for his vast herds of sheep, camels, oxen and she asses, but God was concerned as well with the lion, raven, wild goat, wild ox and wild ass, and yes, even with the ostrich (peacock) which stupidly left its eggs unprotected (Job 38:39-39:18).

Job, Joseph and ourselves

Job’s case was more like that of Joseph and of our own. It took years of misery, joy, misery again and then triumph before Joseph knew the meaning of it all. As he would say to his brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Gen. 45:7). Before the issue was made clear, all Joseph could do was reflect on the promises and hope he was playing a part.

The Lord had told Abraham that his seed “shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs…and afterward shall they come out with great substance” (Gen. 15:13­14). Trust was thus critical for Joseph, trust that God was working with him for a greater good. In Job’s case, while he complained bitterly that God had become his enemy, he never gave up hope in the ultimate justice of God. He trusted fully “that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another, How my heart yearns within me!” (Job. 19:25-27 NIV).

We may be somewhat critical that Job was relying on his own uprightness as the basis of salvation, yet scripture gives him credit for his “perseverance” (Jam. 5:11 NIV). Right to the end he had full confidence that “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job. 28:28).

In our case, we have the advantage of the book of Job, the example of Joseph and the full revelation of God’s work of salvation in our Lord. We may also have seen others suffer and come to realize they went through much for the benefit of others in their family or ecclesia. Having all of this may help, but it barely relieves the anxiety of our own suffering when we can see no good coming from it.

Sometimes we can see that pain, loss, or calamity is truly developing our characters or that of others. We know “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons… if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye illegitimate, and not sons” (Heb. 12:6-7).

There are times, however, when no good is evident. It’s in these circumstances that we take courage from Job and convince ourselves we must trust in the mercy and wisdom of God. For surely our redeemer lives and we will stand before him at the last day, and, by grace, we will rejoice fully in the mercy of God, in whom we have trusted.