Job 23:1-9, Job 23:16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Amos 5:6-7, Amos 5:10-15, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, Mark 10:17-31.
A). HOPE IN THE MIDST OF TRIALS.
Job 23:1-9; Job 23:16-17.
“When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
An active faith may question suffering - but it will not abandon God. In fact, the example of Job demonstrates that the closer we are to God, the more audacious our questioning might be. Sometimes outrageous, sincere, reverent questioning - even if the answers we receive are not what we had hoped for - can lead us even closer to God.
We may be familiar with the afflictions of patriarchs, psalmists and prophets in the Old Testament: and of Apostles and believers in the New. We may be aware of the sufferings of the Church throughout history, and of those undergoing unimaginable struggles even today. We may even feel that we have had more than our fair share of afflictions, or that the trials of those around us are disproportionate to any real sense of justice.
Job had the added pain of being blamed for his pain. If he was suffering - said his “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2) - he must have done something really bad. This is to turn retribution on its head - it is one thing to say that God will punish wickedness: it is quite another to say that an individual’s suffering must always be proportionate to his own specific sin (Luke 13:1-5; John 9:2-3).
Job 23:1. Job is answering the contention that he has deviated from God’s ways (see Job 23:11).
Job 23:2. Job complains because of the intensification of his suffering, despite all his prayers.
Job 23:3-4. Job wished that he might be able to find God, in order to lay out his complaint before Him in a legal argument. Earlier - in a verse which resonates with the possibility of introducing Jesus into the conversation - the complainant had bemoaned the lack of an advocate, between himself and God (Job 9:33). Job evidently no longer wished to “hide” himself from God and “be free from the dread of Him” (Job 13:20-21), but would rather confront Him.
Job 23:5-7. Job longs to hear from God. God will listen. God will not lay any charge against the righteous (Romans 8:33).
Job 23:8-9 seem to be the opposite of Psalm 139. The Psalmist finds the LORD everywhere: even if he had wanted to flee from the LORD, he would have found it as impossible as did Jonah. Yet Job is floundering in the dark - not denying God’s existence, but wondering where He might be found.
Job 23:16. The seeming absence of God makes our heart faint within us. It is a terrible and terrifying prospect.
Job 23:17. The darkness looms large. Will Job flee from it, or embrace it? Whichever way, Job will NOT by silenced by the darkness.
Through all his perplexity, Job is grasping toward the idea that it will all come good in the end (Job 23:10). We can take encouragement from the closing verses of the book, that this did indeed happen (Job 42:10-17). All things - even the most adverse things - do work out for good, for the people of God: and nothing - not even the worst of situations - is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:28; Romans 8:38-39).
The final word on suffering belongs to God Himself, culminating in Jesus’ cry of dereliction upon the Cross (Mark 15:34). Darkness had engulfed the land, even as it had overwhelmed Job’s soul: but the Lord’s cry of anguish was also a cry of triumph. Jesus has been there in the midst of human adversity, and has overcome it on our behalf.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted (tried, tested) like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).
B). JESUS UPON THE CROSS.
Psalm 22:1-15.
The details of the sufferings in Psalm 22:1-21 match more exactly the anguish of Jesus upon the Cross than anything that we can find in any of the written records of David’s life - and because of this the church has always read this Psalm of David as a Psalm of Jesus. Whatever deep sense of desolation rocked David into penning these words, his God-inspired prophetic insight reaches far beyond the limits of his own time and experience to the Cross of Jesus – and beyond. In this respect Psalm 22 stands alongside Isaiah 53 as a prophecy of the suffering of Messiah.
One of the famous ‘seven last sayings of Jesus on the Cross’ is known as the Cry of Dereliction. It appears to be a verbatim quotation of Psalm 22:1 (cf. Mark 15:34), but in fact the converse is true. It was the Spirit of Jesus who inspired the words that flowed from David’s mouth (2 Samuel 23:1-2).
Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mark 15:34; cf. Psalm 22:1).
This is the only time when Jesus addressed the LORD as “My God” rather than “Father.” It is known as the cry of dereliction, or abandonment. Yet it is remarkable that, deserted though He may have felt, Jesus still knew God as HIS God. Believers can draw great strength from this, even at times when we too may feel bereft of the felt presence of God with us.
Jesus’ description of His dereliction is a sense of forsakenness, a sense of God being “far from helping me, (far from) the words of my roaring” (Psalm 22:1b). It is a terrible thing for any one of us to ever feel that way, but consider this: THE SON OF GOD WAS WILLING TO GO THROUGH ALL THIS FOR SINNERS SUCH AS WE!
Sometimes when we are not hearing from God, we try to think of reasons why it might be. What sin might I have committed that causes my prayers to seem to reach no higher than the ceiling? Yet it was Jesus, the Son in whom God was ‘well pleased’, who gave voice to such a situation: “My God,” He says, “I cry by day, and you do not answer, and in the night season I am not silent” (Psalm 22:2).
Yes, He is still acknowledging the relationship: He is still “My God.” Jesus taught that God would do justice for His own elect, ‘though He bear long with them’ (Luke 18:7). Yet there he was, after a long night which began with Him praying in a Garden, and heaven seemed like brass above His holy head. All this for us, whose first parents sinned in another Garden!
“Yet,” begins Psalm 22:3. The lament does not lack an answer, even if it has to be provided by the lamenter. In this instance, it introduces a reflection on just who God is. He is the holy, covenant-keeping God of Israel, who inhabits the praises of His people. He delivered His people in times past: they trusted in Him, and were not disappointed (Psalm 22:3-5).
Sometimes such a recollection leaves us feeling our own smallness, and our own undeservedness: but Jesus had no cause for such shame. He ‘knew no sin’ (2 Corinthians 5:21); He ‘did no sin’ (1 Peter 2:22); in Him is no sin (1 John 3:5).
“But I am a worm, not a man” reflected Jesus, returning to His lament. “A reproach of men and despised” (Psalm 22:6; cf. Isaiah 53:3). “All who see me mock me” (Psalm 22:7; cf. Mark 15:29). They say, “He trusted in the LORD… Let Him deliver Him” (Psalm 22:8; cf. Matthew 27:43).
“Yet,” Jesus reiterates (Psalm 22:9). The LORD was with Him from His mother’s womb (and even before, we might add!) The LORD was with Him when Joseph took Jesus and His mother to Egypt, and when they came back to live in Nazareth. And still, He is “My God” (Psalm 22:10). Such providential care is the portion of all of God’s people (cf. Isaiah 46:3-4).
And again the plaintive plea: “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” (Psalm 22:11). The LORD is the one who delivers when there is no-one else to help us (cf. Psalm 72:12).
“Many bulls” encompassed Jesus (Psalm 22:12; cf. Matthew 27:1; Acts 4:27). They were like lions (Psalm 22:13). For us (Christians), it is the devil who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). ‘Save me from the mouth of the lion,’ cried Jesus .(Psalm 22:21a)
The details of Psalm 22:14-15 are an accurate prediction of what it must have been like. His “bones” are out of joint, His “heart” is like melted wax, His “strength” is dried up, His “tongue” sticks to the roof of His mouth. And “Thou hast brought Me into the dust of death.”
Our Psalm does not end with Jesus still on the Cross. The turning point is ‘Thou hast heard Me’ (Psalm 22:21b). Christ has died. Christ is risen. There is a resurrection to follow for all the people of God. ‘He has done this’ (Psalm 22:31).
C). SEEK THE LORD, AND YE SHALL LIVE.
Amos 5:6-7; Amos 5:10-15.
Amos is already lamenting the doom of the northern kingdom of Israel (Amos 5:1), bewailing the fact that she will ‘no more rise’ because ‘there is none to raise her up’ (Amos 5:2); but he immediately hints that there may yet be a remnant (Amos 5:3; Amos 5:15).
The LORD says to these already doomed people, ‘Seek ye Me, and ye shall live’ (Amos 5:4). It is not ‘seek the Church’ - whether at Bethel or Gilgal or Beersheba or wherever (Amos 5:5), but “Seek the LORD, and ye shall live” (Amos 5:6).
This is both an imperative, and a threat in Amos 5:6-7. “Lest He (the LORD) break out like fire” against a religion that is hypocritical, and that does not translate itself into justice and righteousness in everyday life.
Other prophets add a promise (e.g. Isaiah 55:6-7; Jeremiah 29:12-13). Jesus tells us to ‘Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you’ (Matthew 6:33). ‘Ask, and you shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and the door shall be opened unto you’ (Matthew 7:7).
Amos 5:8-9 informs us just Whom we must seek. Don’t look to the stars, or to Orion, look to the One who made them: ‘the LORD is His name, that strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled come against the fortress.’
The indictment against those whose religion is hypocritical, and yet whom God is still calling from death to life, is that they hate those who exercise right judgment, and abhor those who speak the truth (Amos 5:10). Second, they oppress the poor (Amos 5:11a). For this they will suffer loss (Amos 5:11b).
God knows their hearts (Amos 5:12a). He also knows the outworking of the “transgressions and mighty sins” that may reside there. “They afflict the just, they take a bribe, they turn aside the poor” from justice (Amos 5:12b).
It was “an evil time”, when those who wanted to get on in life hardly dare rock the boat by speaking out against what was going on. Sometimes, we might think, it is “prudent” to “keep silence” in such a time (Amos 5:13). But the earlier ‘Seek ye Me, and ye shall live’ (Amos 5:4), and “Seek the LORD, and ye shall live” (Amos 5:6) must now manifest themselves outwardly: “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live” (Amos 5:14a).
‘Religious’ people presume that ‘God’ is with them. However, James the brother of our Lord suggests that ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, (and) to keep himself unspotted from the world’ (James 1:27).
Are we really “seeking the LORD” (Amos 5:6)? If we are genuinely “seeking good and not evil, that we may live” (Amos 5:14a), then we will “hate evil, and love the good, and establish justice” where we have influence (Amos 5:15a; cf. Psalm 34:14). “And so the LORD (Yahweh), the God of hosts shall be with you, as ye have spoken” (Amos 5:14b).” Thus we set ourselves up for a fresh infusion of His grace (Amos 5:15b).
The resolution of all this comes in the Person of Jesus, who has said that everyone who believes on Him ‘may have everlasting LIFE: and I will raise him up at the last day’ (John 6:40). Again He says, ‘Whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood HAS eternal LIFE; and I will raise him up at the last day’ (John 6:54).
D). APPLICATION OF THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE BREVITY OF LIFE.
Psalm 90:12-17.
Psalm 90:12. When we do reverence the LORD, we will want Him to teach us to make a right application of the truth about the brevity of our lives. We need to know ourselves sinners, and to be aware that death is “the wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). And knowing this, our wisdom is to repent.
Psalm 90:13. When we do repent and turn from our sins, we may ask God to turn from His judgement which had seemed against us. We have in God’s compassion a sure and certain hope of a better prospect. By faith in Jesus Christ we are God’s servants, and no longer the slaves of sin.
Psalm 90:14. The repentant pray for the satisfaction of experiencing God’s merciful love. “Early” is never too soon (Ecclesiastes 12:1). Then we have all the more days to rejoice and be glad in Him whilst we are on this earth.
Psalm 90:15. It is a daring prayer of faith that goes on to ask for gladness in proportion to our wrath-induced afflictions. Romans 8:18 weighs our present sufferings against the glory that awaits us. 2 Corinthians 4:17 also balances our “momentary” affliction with our “eternal” glory.
Psalm 90:16. The believer prays for God’s work to be manifested in our own lives. We also pray for His glory to be revealed in our children. God’s covenant grace out-balances His great wrath against our sins.
Psalm 90:17. We may look for His favour. Death’s hold upon us has been vanquished (1 Corinthians 15:55-58). With the Psalmist, we may boldly pray for God’s blessing upon the work of our hands.
E). THE BOLD APPROACH.
Hebrews 4:12-16.
So far in the epistle to the Hebrews, the author has made extensive use of the Scriptures. After his latest warning against falling into unbelief (Hebrews 4:11), he reminds the Hebrew Christians that “the word of God” is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12a). It is for “Today”, whenever “Today” may be (cf. Hebrews 3:7; Hebrews 3:15; Hebrews 4:7).
The word of God shall not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11). Like a sharp sword (Ephesians 6:17), it pierces and divides, discerning the thoughts and intentions of our innermost being (Hebrews 4:12b). We know hereby that the God “with whom we have to do” (to whom we must give account) knows all things (Hebrews 4:13).
We were previously called to ‘consider Jesus’ as ‘the high priest of our profession’ (Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 4:14a). The token of His finished work is that He is “passed into the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14b), and is there seated, His work completed, at the right hand of God (Hebrews 12:2). There He ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25).
The priesthood of Jesus is superior to that of Aaron. As a man like ourselves, Jesus is a merciful and faithful high priest: yet, unlike Aaron, He is capable of facing and overcoming temptation on our behalf (Hebrews 2:17-18; Hebrews 4:15). For though He is a man, Jesus is also the Son of God (Hebrews 4:14c; Hebrews 5:5).
The earthly tabernacle is only a shadow of the heavenly (Hebrews 9:11-14). The sons of Aaron needed to repeat their sacrifices and offerings over and over again, according to a complex ritual: morning and evening, Sabbaths, new moons, festivals; day by day, month by month, year by year. Jesus has provided the one full final perfect sacrifice for sins, once and for all and for ever, by His own blood (Hebrews 9:24-26).
Jesus’ priesthood is of a better order than that of Aaron (Hebrews 5:10; Hebrews 7:11). It is not genealogy which qualifies our Great High Priest, but the power of an indissoluble life (Hebrews 7:16). Jesus has passed into the heavens (Hebrews 4:14) - and is set on the right hand of God (Hebrews 8:1) - and there makes continual intercession for His people (Hebrews 7:25-27).
So, “let us hold fast our profession” (Hebrews 4:14d), and “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
F). SHARP WORDS SPOKEN BY LOVE.
Mark 10:17-31.
The first three Gospels all report Jesus’ encounter with the character who has become known by the composite name of ‘the rich young ruler’. They all mention that he was ‘rich’ (as in Mark 10:22), but only Matthew mentions that he was ‘young’ (Matthew 19:22), and only Luke mentions that he was ‘a ruler’ (Luke 18:18). This man came running to Jesus and knelt before Him as a supplicant.
Yet his question assumed that the only way that he might “inherit” eternal life was by “doing” something. It may come as news to some, but an inheritance is not ‘earned’. The Giver gives the Gift, and the recipient receives it!
The fact that Jesus is a “good teacher” (Mark 10:17) had first appeared when Jesus was twelve years old (Luke 2:46-47). To the supplicant, however, Jesus re-joined, “Why do you call Me good? There is none good but God” (Mark 10:18). This seems to imply that the young man was speaking out of turn, about things which he did not yet fully comprehend.
Now this man seemed to have had everything going for him: he was rich; he was a ruler; and, in his own eyes, he was upright (Mark 10:19-20). How poorly, it seems, do we know our own hearts. However, God knows them better than we do ourselves (cf. Jeremiah 17:9-10)!
The man claimed to have kept all the commandments Jesus had selected, including an additional one about not defrauding. Had the rich man, perhaps, some issues with Korban (cf. Mark 7:11-12)? At least by the time of his reply, the young man had dropped the pretension of understanding Jesus’ goodness.
Any sharpness that there may have been in Jesus’ voice was now probably dissipated by the tenderness of His pity. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). Surely a look to break the hardest of hearts: as should the very thought that He loves us!
“One thing you lack,” continued Jesus. Sometimes there is just “one thing” standing between us and what is best for us, as is shown in the story of Martha (cf. Luke 10:41-42). For the young man, his one thing was his riches (Mark 10:21).
Not that everyone who is rich is told, like Barnabas, to sell all and give to the poor (Acts 4:36-37). While the riches are yours, it is up to you how you dispose of them. All the Scripture asks is that you listen to God and that, unlike Ananias and Sapphira, you be honest with Him (cf. Acts 5:4).
Love of riches might trap us into denying God, whereas poverty might be used as an excuse to steal and thus profane His name: so, ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches,’ concludes the wise man (Proverbs 30:8-9). Perhaps the rich man should learn to be more like the Apostle Paul - ‘…I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound… I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:11-13). But this “cross” was too much for the young man to bear, and he went away sad (Mark 10:22).
Interestingly Gamaliel warned the Sanhedrin against potentially resisting a work of God (Acts 5:38-39). Jesus warned Gamaliel’s student, Saul of Tarsus (who later became the Apostle Paul) against ‘kicking against the goads’ (Acts 26:14) - which was a Greek expression inferring resistance to God. I believe in the efficacy of Jesus’ love (Mark 10:21), and just wonder whether this young man ever did (like Paul) come to his senses?
A second time we see that “look” of Jesus: “Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God’” (Mark 10:23). “Children,” continued Jesus, in a term of familiarity and affection, “how hard it is for THOSE WHO TRUST IN riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle…” (Mark 10:24-25).
“Who then can be saved?” asked the disciples (Mark 10:26). They were astounded: they obviously bought into the common culture which suggests that riches are a sign of God’s approval. A third “look” said, “With God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27; cf. Luke 1:37).
Yet Peter, as the disciples’ spokesman, still wanted to draw attention to what they had all DONE (Mark 10:28). Jesus cut him short with the reassurance that what anyone has given up for the cause of Christ will be restored a hundredfold (Mark 10:29-30). We find a new family among God’s people with God as our Father, lands, (and persecutions!) - and receive the free gift of eternal life besides.
And a process is begun whereby the old order of things is being turned downside up (Mark 10:31; cf. Acts 17:6).
