One of my favorite characters in the Old Testament is the man Job. Job is one of those books of the Bible that we don’t spend a lot of time reading and studying. The reason for this may be the fact that it reminds of how a good and just man suffered immensely, and in our finite human mind we can’t wrap our minds around this. Thus, we just avoid this book and character that has so much to teach us.
After Job’s suffering and loss, we get to the end of the book and we see in chapter 42 verse 5 Job states, “My ears have heard of you but now I my eyes have seen you.”
What a tremendous statement. Job having been through the roughest and darkest times imaginable; it was through this long trial that he saw God. The truth is no matter how difficult our life is it is during these times that God often reveals His greatest truths to us.
I believe that there are four insurmountable spiritual truths that Job learned during this time. It is these truths that made him able to see God within a way that he had never seen before. I want to share these four truths with you now and let us pray that we may be able to learn these without going through what Job went through.
The first spiritual truth Job learned through his adversity was, although Job lost everything, even his children, Job discovered that God was still with him. How alone Job must have felt. He had lost all family except his wife, and that is another story in itself. He lost his reputation as a community leader. He found himself, humanly speaking, totally alone. Yet in the end he discovered that God had never left him.
You and I today live in a world that tries to destroy us. We have times when we feel like no one is with us, but when everyone is gone there is God. Jesus said he would never leave or forsake us.
The second spiritual truth Job learned was even though he faced the most difficult and bewildering tribulation imaginable, Job came to understand that God was infinitely wiser than he was.
If there is one thing that our American society has developed in the mind of man is that he is the wisest of all creatures. It says we can’t trust our own wisdom. My friend, please hear me now. There is nothing farther from the truth than that. But the truth is that in our arrogance and ego it takes tremendous trials for us to realize we do need someone else in our lives, and this is God.
The third spiritual truth Job learned is when he faced the harshness and judgmental attitude of his wife, who accused him of sinning against God, advised him to curse God and die, he learned that God is the only one who is loyal.
Surely it must have broken the very heart of Job, as he suffered for his wife to turn on him. The truth is, often times when we need the loyalty of someone special, it is during this time that we cannot find this loyalty.
The fourth spiritual truth that Job learned was when he endured the insensitivity of his best friends; he learned that God was the only one trustworthy. If ever there were three friends who did not speak the truth to Job it was his.
When we one is walking through a tremendous trial, what one needs is the truth. Even if the truth hurts, we need the truth. In all the advice that is floating through this world today only the advice of God can one completely trust.
The truth is we all walk through trials. We can either let them make us bitter and turn our back on God or we can let these trials make us see God for who He really is; ever present, all wisdom, most loyal, and infinitely trustworthy.
