Good Interruptions Series

Job 19: 1 – 29

Good Interruptions

1 Then Job answered and said: 2 “How long will you torment my soul, and break me in pieces with words? 3 These ten times you have reproached me; You are not ashamed that you have wronged me. 4 And if indeed I have erred, my error remains with me. 5 If indeed you exalt yourselves against me, and plead my disgrace against me, 6 know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net. 7 “If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard. If I cry aloud, there is no justice. 8 He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass; And He has set darkness in my paths. 9 He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; My hope He has uprooted like a tree. 11 He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His enemies. 12 His troops come together and build up their road against me; They encamp all around my tent. 13 “He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. 14 My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who dwell in my house, and my maidservants, count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. 16 I call my servant, but he gives no answer; I beg him with my mouth. 17 My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am repulsive to the children of my own body. 18 Even young children despise me; I arise, and they speak against me. 19 All my close friends abhor me, and those whom I love have turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 “Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me! 22 Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh? 23 “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! 24 That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, 27 Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! 28 If you should say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’—Since the root of the matter is found in me, 29 Be afraid of the sword for yourselves; For wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”

Have you been abused by a Pastor who should have restored you but instead chose to condemn you (or worse). I do not deny that many of us have been victims of the sinful, selfish, and hurtful acts of those in and around the church. One great comment I heard regarding this issue stated that many churches kick out the people they should minister to and minister to the people they should have kicked out of their church fellowship

What is it about us that we stay and get beat up? Sometimes we choose to remain victims when we have the opportunity to move on. The apostle Paul teaches us in his second letter to the Corinthians chapter 6 verse 17, “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.”

It is a waste of our spiritual potential to fixate on how events of the past could have or should have been different. The past is gone so why should we try to live in it. We cannot change anything. The Lord Jesus taught us as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 6 verse 34 to just focus on today, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” In other words one day at a time.

We need to focus that our Lord holds the future. In the letter to the Philippians chapter 1 verse 6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.’ You see it is up to Him to do all in us and for us.

Understand this point which is - No amount of time spent dwelling on how someone in the church hurt us will change our present situation.