“HE Knows...” – FBC Morning Light (1/23/2024)

Job’s Faith When God Cannot Be Seen

What a good Tuesday morning to you, I hope your week got off to a good start yesterday, and looking forward to what the Lord has for you in this day. If you're following along in our Bible reading plan this year, this chronologically reading through the Bible, today we're in Job chapters 22 through 24.

And again, as I mentioned yesterday, we're in the book of Job all this week, and be wrapping it up sometime next week. But yesterday, I pointed out Job had this rhetorical wish that he didn't really expect to be fulfilled, and that is that his words would be engraved and written down to last.

Forever.

And they were. And what he had to say after that was an incredible statement of faith, belief in a Redeemer who lives and rules, and will rule forever, as well as in a resurrection, a personal, physical, bodily resurrection.

God’s Hiddenness and Job’s Confession of Trust

So that was an incredible statement of faith. Well today, he offers another statement of faith, and he does so, shall we say, in spite of the fact. Let me ask you this. Have you ever seen God with your own eyes?

Have you ever physically, visibly seen God? I know that's a rhetorical question in itself, isn't it? Of course not. Of course you haven't. You haven't. And yet, what do you believe about him? The reason I ask that is because of what Job says in chapter 23, verses 8 and 9.

He says this. He says, look, I go forward, but he, God, is not there. I move forward, God isn't there. And backward, but I cannot perceive him. So you're driving down the road, moving forward, and you don't run into God.

You turn around and you look behind you, look in your rearview mirror, and you just see the cars behind you. You don't perceive God at all. He says, when he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him.

And when he turns to the right hand, I can't see him. So Job is communicating a fact that's true for all of us, that we don't see God. And most of the time, we don't perceive him. Now, we may have a faith that, I hope we do, have a faith that believes in the omnipresence of God, that he's everywhere, and so therefore he is right here with us, wherever you happen to be sitting, and right here in my study with me, that God is there.

But I don't see him. And I look to the left, I look to the right, look in front of me, I look behind me, I don't perceive God. But then, here's what Job's statement of faith comes after that acknowledgment.

God Knows the Way I Take

He says this, but, even though I can't see him, and I can't perceive him, but he knows the way that I take. And when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. Wow, there's a lot in that statement, isn't there?

There is, in the first place, a statement that God knows the way that I take. It is not a surprise to him, he's right here with me, he's going with me along the way, he knows the way that I take. He knows the direction that's going, he knows the destination of that way, he knows the way that I take.

A second aspect of this statement of faith is that he has tested me, when he has tested.

Me.

So Job is looking at his circumstances as an experience of testing that's coming from the hand of God. God is testing him, he is trying him, and he looks at that testing as a time of refinement because of what he says in the next part of this statement of faith.

Refinement Through Testing and Romans 8:28

When he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. So he's got a faith in the end product here. If you think about it, this really is a very ancient way of saying what Paul said about 20, 200, 300 years after Job made this statement.

Paul wrote in Romans 8, 28, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And what is Paul saying? That when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

I know that this is going to take place. God knows the way that I'm taking. He ordains all things, ultimately for my good and for his glory. So again, Job's going through it, and he's looking around, he's wondering, where is God in all this?

I don't perceive him, I don't see him, I don't understand what he's doing, I can't see how he is working in all of this, but he says this, he knows the way I take. And when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

Encouragement to Trust God’s Purposes

I hope that's your statement of faith today as well. I don't know what you're going through, obviously. Maybe life is pretty tough for you right now, and you're kind of in the situation that Job's in, and you're looking around, and you're saying, yeah, I don't see what God's doing in this, I can't figure out his work, I can't understand it, I can't perceive it.

But can you come to this statement of faith? When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. He knows what he's doing. He knows the way that I'm taking. Our Father and our God, may we be able to affirm that statement with Job today.

We pray it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well listen, you have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I trust the Lord will bless you in it. Have a good day.