The anguish of Job

The dramatic saga of life, death, anguish and victory

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

        The poetic saga of the prophet Job is drama-filled, tragic and shows true resilience of a man that God never left nor forsook. It reads almost like a play with Act and Scene I beginning with a personal show down between God and Satan. God tells Satan that during his search for whom he may lead astray, Job was one that even in the face of a test of affliction, loss of loved ones, wealth that totally disappears, and even his family and friends turning their backs on him, He was sure that Job, through the grace of God, would prevail.
        Satan offers a test of the validity of Job's faith. He questions as to whether or not it is because God has a hedge of protection around Job. He offers a test to allow Job to be completely vulnerable, without God's protection around him. "Surely, his present faith would be for naught if your hedge of protection was lifted from him."
        God tells Satan that no matter what harm Job experiences, he will not renounce God. God allows Satan to place any affliction upon Job's family and possessions, but he could not touch Job's body. God displays His ultimate dominion over all heaven and earth as He limits Satan to the power that he can have over Job. Satan has no choice but to comply with God's supreme authority.
        His sons and daughters were in the eldest son's house eating and drinking wine, enjoying the toils of their father's riches. While they feasted, Sabeans, enemies of the land, attacked the animals and servants and killed them all, except one servant, who came to Job to bear message of what had come to pass.
        When the first servant had finished telling Job what had happened, another came to him and told of fire from heaven that consumed all of Job's flock of sheep and servants. He was the only one left to tell what had come to pass.
        Afterwards, another came to him and bore message that the Chaldeans came upon the camels and took off with them and killed all of the servants tending the camels. He was the only one left to tell what had come to pass.
        Finally, the last messenger came to Job and told him that all his sons and daughters were feasting when a great wind blew and knocked down the house and killed them all. He was the last person left to tell what had come to pass.
        The first strike blown against Satan was Job rising, renting his clothes, shaved his head in reverence to God, fell to the ground and worshipped God. Job proclaimed, "Naked, I came out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return to the earth; the Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
        In his grief for his sons and daughters, not bearing mind to the rest of his losses, Job went through this and did not sin; Act I ends.
        In Act II, Satan again came before God and God asked him about Job. God told him that even after what he had done to Job, Job stood strong for God. Satan told him that the hedge of protection still was around Job's body. He said that if he could smite him with physical afflictions, Job could not handle the pain that he could bring about him without renouncing God.
        God told Satan that Job's body was his to do as he wished, but he could not kill him. Satan smote Job with sores and boils all over his body; from the soles of his feet to his head. Job scraped all of the boils from his body and sat in ashes.    
        When Job has been sunken to his very lowest point of his life, after losing everything but his wife and his very life, his wife comes to him and presents her point of view as to why Job has been afflicted with such hardship. She told him that because of all the good that Job had accepted from God, that they must now pay it back by receiving evil.
        His three friends in his town came to comfort him. Upon first sight, they did not recognize him. They all cried when they finally realized it was him, took off their clothes and sat in the ashes with him in morning for their friend, Job.
        In the opening of Act III, Job broke his silence of a few days. He cursed the very day that he was born. He could not understand why God would allow all of the grief that befell him. He wished for his very death. His friend, Eliphaz told him that in the days of his strength, he had taught many and helped them to be strong in their own weakness, yet that day, in his own weakness, he wished for death. He asked him if this was not a test that had come upon him so that he might prove all that he had taught others about strength in their afflictions.
        Eliphaz then relays to Job a vision that he had about the sin of man and how terrible it is to receive communication from heaven. He asks, "Why does man pretend to be more just, more pure than God?"
        He talks about the presumptive pride of mankind and the patients of God to put up with us. Man can not be cleansed without his maker. Eliphaz asks if God will justify sinful men and clear them from their guilt. He asks, "or will he do so without their having an interest in the righteousness and gracious help of their promised Redeemer, when angels, once ministering spirits before his throne, receive the just recompence of their sins?"
        Job gives justification for his grief and desire for death. He tells that in addition to the outward hardships he had experienced, the inward sense of God's wrath had taken away his resolve and confidence. In his grief, he had no relief, but what he did have was burdensome and loathsome. But even though he was wishing for death, he still gave service to the glory of God. Those who have God's grace in them bear the evidence of it; they exercise it and the wisdom they possess because of that grace will be their strength in times of need.
        Disappointed in his friends, he then compares his suffering to the evaporation of rivers and streams in the summer time. People who put their trusts in temporal things of the flesh, find that it fails them when they need it most. But to those who put their trust in God, shall have all their needs (not necessarily their wants) met according to His riches in glory. It is best to commit our trust to Him. God keeps our souls. Every upright believer shall have praise of God.
        As the saga of Job progresses, Job even went so far as to tell God that he was angry with him, yet, as Job finally listened after expressing his feelings, the more God is able to deal with Job, in Job's bearing of the afflictions so that God shall be praised. God never left Job in his sufferings and even when Job's own wife advised hi to curse God and die, Job rebuked her with the wisdom that can only come from the holy anointing that God can provide in forbearance to the fact that it was God that allowed this so that his faithful servant could prove him right to Satan.
         As the saga draws nigh in the final act, in his anger, Job did not sin, and he did not renounce God. God shows Job that in his ignorance, God is all knowledgeable, being the creator of everything; and nothing existing that wasn't created by God. God showed Job his weakness in arraigning divine counsels, and shows him that he ought not oppose the ways of God's providence because it has the wherewithal to satisfy our every need. In Job's riches and great possession, he took for granted that God would continue the supplication of his needs and wants.
        Job humbled  himself before God and God reasoned with Job to show his righteousness, his power and his wisdom. In this saga of Job, his troubles began in Satan's malice, which God restrained; his restoration began in God's mercy, which Satan could not oppose. God turned his wrath toward Eliphaz and the other two friends of Job for their insolence toward Job's hardships. He ordered Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, Job's friends to offer up burnt sacrifices to him for not speaking of God with righteousness, but instead, twisting the metaphorical thorn in Job's side because of all of his sufferings as though God himself brought it onto Job with no care as to the pain he went through.
        God established His grace back unto Job because of Job's obedience and his resilience in withstanding the test. God rewarded him with twice more wealth, land, crops and livestock to Job's possessions than he had before. God also blessed Job with seven more sons and three more daughters.
        As the curtain draws and the cast takes their last call, Job prove his best, his last works his best works, his last comforts his best comforts; for his path, like that of the morning light, shines more and more unto the perfect day.

R. Douglass Mahaffey - Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.
        
       

The measure of a man

David stands up to a giant

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

David, the son of a shepherd from Bethlehem, was out tending his father’s flock one day. David’s family lived near a valley that stretched from just east of Bethlehem to just west of Jericho. Traditions held by Jews in that region believe this area to be the valley that David wrote about in the 23rd Psalm, when he wrote, Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

            Just a side note; there is also a spot in this same valley where it is believed that Mary and Joseph stopped to rest on their way to Bethlehem from Nazareth before Jesus was born. The animals in the valley, which were mostly predatory, were said to have been more desirable to face than the criminal element of Samaria, that would have awaited them, had they taken the eastward route from Nazareth, which would have been shorter.

            In that valley, David slew some of the world’s most fiercest predatory animals of that day, in order to protect his father’s sheep. He was only a boy of about 16 or 17 years old. Jesse came to David with food to take to his brothers, who were in the Israelite Army behind enemy lines, battling the Philistines, who controlled the area that we now call Gaza.

            David set off to take the food to his brothers. When he got to the Israelite’s camp and found his brothers, he was ashamed to find them hiding in their tents. He confronted them and asked them why they were hiding. They told him that they were afraid of the Philistine’s biggest weapon against them, Goliath of Gath.

            The Philistines would come up to the battle line and taunt the Israelites. They would call them dogs and threaten them to come out of their tents and face the onslaught from Goliath. The Israelites remained in their tents, hiding. When David heard the things that the Philistine army was saying to them, he couldn’t believe his ears.

            David told his brothers that they were God’s chosen people and that no giant should be able to stop them from living freely in the land God gave them. David had a personal relationship with King Saul, as his armor-bearer and musician. David came before King Saul and offered to face Goliath. King Saul attempted to “talk some sense” into David, that no boy could defeat the giant on his own. David told the king that he didn’t plan to face Goliath alone. He planned to destroy Goliath with God on his side.

            King Saul continued to discourage David to no avail. David was dead set on showing Israel and all of their enemies what can be accomplished with God on their side. King Saul then tried putting his armor on David. But David was too small to fit the armor and it was too heavy for him. David told King Saul that having God on his side was all the armor he needed. Saul told David to go and may the Lord be with him. King Saul didn’t believe that David would survive facing Goliath.

            David walked down to the river that flowed within the valley of Elah. Picking up five stones and placing them in his shepherd’s bag, he approached the Philistine’s camp, where Goliath came out to face-off with David. Goliath scoffed at him, “Am I a dog that you come at me with staves?” The Philistines cursed God before David.

            David rebuked Goliath and the Philistines and said, “You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day will the Lord deliver you into my hands; and I will smite you and take your head from you; and I will give the carcases of the Philistine army this day unto the fowls of the air and the beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.”

            Goliath ran toward David and David ran toward Goliath. Before Goliath could strike one blow at the Shepherd, David reached into his shepherd’s bag, grabbing one of the stones that he had gathered from the river earlier. He put it in his sling and shot it at Goliath, sinking it into the forehead of the giant. Goliath fell dead to the ground.

            David drew Goliath’s sword from its sheath and cut the head off of the giant, just as he said he would. The Philistine army ran away in fear of David after seeing their hero fall to the little shepherd boy. The Israelite army caught and killed all that were present for the army of the Philistines, and the birds and beasts fed on them.

            What giant are you facing? How do you deal with the things that come at you with adversity? Do you stand up to those that mock God and belittle you for being a believer? We are called to be soldiers for God. If you were serving in man’s army and an enemy came after you, you wouldn’t stand idly by and let them walk all over you and what you stood for. You would be court marshaled for not fighting back.

            God expects the same thing from His soldiers. Put on His armor; that is, read His word and turn to him in your time of need. He will be your shield of protection. Then you will measure up to being the person God created you yo be.

R. Douglass Mahaffey – Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.

 

The covenant with Abraham

God fulfilling a promise

by R. Douglass Mahaffey

            Abraham made a solid treaty with God concerning a covenant that was made, establishing the seed of Israel, God's chosen people. As Abraham was on a mountain when the covenant was settled, it was made to him by God as a covenant of promises. First, God promised kindness and good-will to Abraham. In Genesis 15:1, there was a declaration of the purposes of God's love toward Abraham in two different ways; one, that He would give Abraham a numerous issue, two, in verses 2-6, that He would give Abraham Canaan for an inheritance. 

           Either an estate without an heir, or an heir without an estate would have only been a half-comfort to Abraham, but God ensures both an estate and an heir to him, the promised seed and the promised land; comforts indeed to Abraham. Both of the two invaluable things that God promised and delivered on toward Abraham was Christ and Heaven.

            God made this covenant with Abraham after the famous act of generous charity had been performed by Abraham (rescuing his friends and neighbors out of distress not for price or reward). Then God visited Abraham of which the conversation and actions of Chapter 15 came to pass. God told Abraham that He was his shield and great reward. Abraham, wondering what reward God would give him, made notice that he had no son, but one from his house, a steward named Eliezer of Damascus, was his heir.

            God assured Abraham that Eliezer was not to be his heir, but one that would come from Abraham himself, instead. Now Abraham was an old man by today's standards. He was almost 100 years old when God made the covenant with him, that his seed would be the Jewish origin. Before the time of Noah, Abraham's ancestor, people easily lived to be over 800 to 900 years old. God made sure that man only lived for about 100 to 150 years old after the flood. Abraham had a hard time understanding how a man of his age would be able to conceive a child, not to mention, his wife, Sarah was well in her 90s as well.

            God then assured Abraham in Genesis 15:5 as "he brought him forth abroad, and said, "Look now, toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them," and he said unto him, "So shall thy see be."

            From that day forward, Abraham believed the Lord and counted it to God for righteousness. God told Abraham that He brought him out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees to Caanan to give him the land as an inheritance. God then told Abraham to make burnt sacrifices unto Him of a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.

            Abraham followed God's instructions. He divided each of the animals and gave them up as an offering to God. He did not cut the birds in two, however. This was of no consequence in the sacrifice. The blood of the heifer, goat and ram was enough to suffice the offering to God.

            That night, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Abraham. Verse 12 says that while Abraham slept, a "horror of great darkness fell upon him."

            There, God told Abraham that his seed would be a stranger in a land that was not theirs, and that they would serve the inhabitants of that land and would suffer for 400 years. God also told Abraham of the judgement that would fall upon those they served. He assured Abraham that after their suffering was over, that his seed would "come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy father's in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age." God was referring to the Jew's captivity in the land of Egypt, as they would suffer under the Egyptians as slaves for 400 years, before being released to inherit the promised land of Israel 40 years later.

            He then told Abraham about the great battles that would be fought against the Amorites as His judgement for the Amorites iniquity. As Abraham awoke and was leaving the mountain after his talk with God, the covenant was made that Abraham's seed would inherit the land from the Nile unto the Euphrates. The Jews would also inherit the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaims, Amorites, Caananites, Girgashites and Jebusites; the land we now know as Israel (or Palestine) today.

               God wants to make a covenant with us. In our families, God wants to prosper us all in the goodness and righteousness of His glory. He wants to make us His children. He wants to make us His chosen race, as he did with Israel. He wants us to desire that in return as well. God does not force His way into our lives. He gave us a free will to choose His Son, Jesus, as our propitiation, or the one worthy sacrifice that could rescue us from the sinner's hell that we have earned, but don't have to suffer. The sacrifice has already been made. Choose this day whom you shall serve. Make it Jesus.

R. Douglass Mahaffey -  Founder and Publisher of The Wise Conservative.