A Word in Season: God the Refiner (Job 23:8–10)

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You may easily be able to enter into the experience of Job as he records it in chapter 23 in verses 8 to 10.

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Look, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him.

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When he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him, when he turns to the right hand, I cannot see him.

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But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

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Here is the confusion and the consolation of a righteous man.

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We know Job is a righteous man, not least from what he says in the verses immediately following. My foot has held fast to his steps.

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I have kept his way and not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips.

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I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. And it's from the heart of such a man as this, a man committed to God and to his truth, that these words proceed.

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And the confusion is very clear. Now, Job, remember, is in a context where he's wrestling with his friends about what's taking place in his life.

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They are very clear that Job must have sinned and therefore is suffering.

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Job is equally clear that having not sinned, he cannot understand why he does suffer.

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Job wants to come before God and make his case. His friends think the case is already made.

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And this then is the language of a man who is deeply troubled. And you can hear the pain in his words as he cries out.

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He knows that God is working. He makes that very clear.

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But what he says is, I don't know how and I don't know why. Wherever I turn, whatever

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I consider, I don't discern the way of God. I can't understand his purposes.

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I cannot interpret his providences. Now, some of those things are hard to do at the best of times.

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But you know how the Lord was pleased to bring Job down to nothing. And Job is now deeply distressed and disturbed by the fact that not only are these things happening to him, but he seems to have nowhere to turn and nowhere to go.

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And here then is his confusion. And you may share it with regard to things that are taking place in your own experience.

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Individually, you say, I don't know why I'm going through these things. I don't know why

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I'm suffering the way that I do. I don't know why I'm being battered by wave after wave of trouble.

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It may be that you're part of a congregation that is really struggling with things. There are perhaps troubles within or persecutions without.

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The work seems to falter rather than to advance. And you say, what is

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God doing? Perhaps it's not just your own congregation, but others. Or you look out into the world at large and you see the turmoil and the distress and the wickedness and the confusion.

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And you're saying with Job, in confusion, though I believe that God is working,

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I just don't know what's going on and I cannot see him and I cannot find him in the mess.

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And then Job resolves it. Here is the consolation of Job.

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But he knows the way that I take. When he has tested me,

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I shall come forth as gold. Job doesn't know, but he knows that God knows.

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Job grasps the fact that the God whom he cannot see at this time, whose way is beyond his understanding, that this

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God is at work and that this God knows the path that Job is on.

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He has appointed it for him. There is no confusion in the mind and heart of God.

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Yes, God knows the way that Job takes. He has appointed both the means and the end.

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And when God has tested him, he shall come forth as gold. This is a trial for Job of his faith, of his hope, of his love.

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And he knows that God, because he is both wise and good, is testing him with purpose.

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And though the test is painful, though there is fire here, it is for purification, for refining.

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That when God's purposes in Job have been accomplished, he will be golden.

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That the impurities of his thought and feeling and living will be more removed than before.

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That the perfections of God's work in him will be seen. And in the midst of our great confusions, we need

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Job's consolations that God knows the way that we take. And when he has tested us, we too shall come forth as gold.