Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Remaining faithful and trusting the Lord is not so hard when everything goes your way. Refraining from sinful thoughts and words is not so difficult when life is pleasant and circumstances are agreeable. Being the go to person with whom people are accustomed to talking with when life if hard for them is both humbling and somewhat fulfilling. To be able to recall wise biblical counsel and words of comfort to stressed out and hurting hearts is priceless.
But when the suffering comes upon you, especially if you have been a spiritual care giver, as it came upon Job, and you need that someone to turn to for wise counsel and words of comfort; what do you do when you come to the end of your rope and no one is found who can help? When instead of you being understood and comforted in your trials, you instead are judged as being in sin due to your distress. Instead of others saying “God bless you and we will be here for you; tell us if we can do anything for you; we will be praying for you and we will be supportive”, and really mean it and not hold this against you and use it against you later on. Job instead was unfairly judged by his three friends as though he was suffering due to some sin in his life; sin that he was too proud to admit. He was attacked by his so called friends.
Eliphaz judged Job and accused him of iniquity; that Job was being judged by God for his alleged sins, in essence that Job’s chickens had come home to roost, Job 4:1-9. You may ask, “How can it be construed as a blessing from God when your best friends shy away from you and even turn from you when you needed them?” It is a great blessing in that you are being guided by God to turn only to him. You are learning that you need God even more than your best friends.
Bildad also accused Job of sinning against God. In chapter seven, Job groaned for the grave because he hurt so badly, but instead of receiving sympathy and words of encouragement from Bildad that God’s grace would see him through his trials Bildad accused Job of living an impure and unrighteous life, 8:1-6. Bildad believed as many misinformed people do today, that if you are suffering you must be sinning, and if you are prosperous you must be in God’s good favor. This same mindset prevailed during our Lord’s ministry as noted in John 9:1-7 when Jesus Christ passed by and saw a man who was blind from his birth. His disciples assumed either this man had sinned or his parents had sinned and blindness was punishment from God. But Jesus rebuked them for this misguided idea.
Suffering can come upon us because we do live in a sin cursed world, but suffering does not always mean we have directly done anything wrong. And for the spiritually mature believer, undeserved suffering can come about by doing things right. Missionaries would never survive in their ministries if they thought doing good for God was always going to bring about blessed results. Many of them have died on the mission field as a result of doing the will of God. Many spouses have found themselves living a lonely marital life because they have chosen to do the will of God. Many parents have found themselves outcast by their own children for living a godly life. Would you rather be blessed by God for doing what is righteous, or would you rather be included by the world for doing what you know is not righteous?
The Bible is very clear on this subject. II Tim.3:12 “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” Brethren, as a positive believer who is suffering for the Lord, you never suffer in silence or in solitude because God is with you and he hears your distress and he will come to you, Ps.40:1-3.
Job 11:1-5
Job’s third friend, Zophar, after hearing Job trying to figure out his troubles and his suffering added to Job’s suffering.
Zophar called Job a liar and a mocker of God; that Job's crying out for understanding was something Job should have been ashamed of. Zohpar actually requested that God should judge Job for his alleged insubordination to God.
None of these men, including Job knew what conversations were going on in the heavens between God and Satan, and I want you to be aware that these same conversations are probably still going on today. We are witnesses of the salvation and powerful life giving Spirit of God. We are witnesses of the power of Bible doctrine as we apply God’s word to our trials and temptations and Satan’s evil dark powers and principalities still see us as they did Job thousands of years ago. Satan has gone no where and he is still the accuser of the saints.
Suffering hurts; it’s just that way. In suffering for blessing we focus more on the suffering initially, than this misunderstood divine blessing. It is a blessing wherein God’s merciful plan is that we eventually give up on our trusted human resources and be drawn to God for his strength and his answers. No one but God has an appropriate answer when it comes to your undeserved suffering; only God. It is tailor made for you for a reason. And if your friends cannot help you, and if they do not understand you, it is not their problem; it is not their fault because this blessing is to get you to lean harder on the grace of God. As Job said it was the thing he most feared, Job.3:25. His fears displayed weakness in his faith toward God. The last vestige of spiritual dignity any maturing saint has is his assumed great faith. In undeserved suffering for the mature believer this great faith is strained like no other time.
The deep seated pride, of which we thought was gone from us, lingers way down in the darkest recesses of our souls it comes into play as we eventually start justifying why we are going through what we are going through. In the end, when we have learned to place ourselves in the hands of God, when we begin to trust him rather than our own strength, it is then and only then that we finally come to terms with our own limitations. We no longer feel that we have to justify our lives to people. What a relief; what an unimaginable shackle is lifted off of us. What a great burden is removed from us, a burden that hinders our walk with God.
We try so hard to be what we think God and people want us to be that we over think our lives and we forget what we have become, if anything worth while, is of God’s own hand, and not our own. As Paul said in I Cor.15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace, which was upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Undeserved suffering puts us in our place with God. Rest for the soul is the result. Peace between you and God is the result. You need this rest and peace of soul to experience the joy of the Lord. Otherwise your Christianity is not much more than a duty.
I want to experience the joy and peace of the Lord more than I want to succeed as a husband, a father, or a pastor.
If I know and experience the joy and fellowship of the Lord then everything else will find its proper place in my life. My life is not my marriage, or my family, or my church, it is my Lord.
This is what I believe Paul meant when he said in Phil.1:21 “For me to live Christ, and to die, gain.” Phil.4:11 ... “for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.”
Everything doesn’t have to go the way we want it to go for us to be content and be at peace with God and ourselves. He is the executive director of the universe, not us. We can only do the best we can with His direction and then we have to leave everything else up to him. His shoulders are much broader than ours, Matt.11:29-30.
Have you come to Jesus Christ for salvation? Have you had the condemnation and guilt of your sins removed? Is heaven your eternal destination? If you are not sure, why don’t you ask Him to come into your life and save you for all eternity? He will save you and keep you forever.