SEPTEMBER 21, 2023
“Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!” (Job 23:3)
There was a reality in Job’s faith. His was not a flimsy, superficial religion. It was not merely a sound creed. It was not based on theory or speculation, and neither was it a well-rounded system of doctrines and duties. There was something deep and Divine in Job’s faith. There was no pretense or hypocrisy with him, and if our religion be by the same pure and undefiled nature as his, there will be something powerful, spiritual, and supernatural about it – something that goes beyond notions and doctrines, however scriptural and correct they may be. If God the Holy Spirit be the Author of it, there will be a Divine reality that will not trifle with the solemn things of God, nor with our own immortal souls.
Let us look a little into the character of the man who is here speaking; the man referred to by God Himself at the beginning of this book as “My servant Job.” Job knew God. He had been highly favored of God. Upon that favored state he is now looking back with fond regret. “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me…when by his light I walked through darkness…when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle.” (Ch. 29:2-4) Yes, Job knew God; he knew the presence of God. But those days of God’s sweet visitations and consolations, Job had lost. This wonderful blessing and the loss of it is implied in this pitiful heart-cry, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!”
In the first and second chapters, we find out how he lost those precious consolations that his soul had once enjoyed. But, up to the time of the circumstances recorded there, he had known but little of his own heart; the awful depths of nature’s depravity; knowing little of the temptations of Satan. The evil one began by taunting him: “Doth Job,” he asked, “fear God for naught?” He went on to say that if God should remove from him the hedge of Divine favor, which prevented the fiery darts, Satan would otherwise have afflicted his soul. It was after God took away the hedge that Job began to feel abandoned of God, and cried out, “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him…” But he knew not, for “He walked in darkness, and had no light.”
Job, then, had found the Lord, and now Job has lost Him too. You may depend upon it, for it is a solemn truth that none but living souls ever find the Lord, and none but living souls ever lose the Lord. None except those whose hearts God has touched ever know and feel the presence of God, or ever even come to mourn the loss of His presence. None but God’s children ever walk in the light of His countenance, and therefore only they can experience the dread darkness that Job here feels about him.
But the desire of Job’s soul is to find the Lord. And if he could but find Him, he would then pour out his soul before Him, and tell all his complaints. This is exactly what we need when we are tried, downcast, and discouraged. We need to find God! We must seek Him until we find Him. The Lord does not send trials for no reason. The Lord says, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer. 29:13) “And I will be found of you, saith the LORD…” Job would find the Lord. He was as near as breathing all along. But we find Him in peace and comfort when we, like David, say, “Bring hither the ephod.” Job would discover that his true consolation was not in material things, nor even in family, but in the Lord Himself. Believer, if you are suffering some great trial, and it seems that the Lord has abandoned you, He hasn’t! He says to His tried child, “I will be found of you!” “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Job said, “that I might come even to His seat!” Come, dear soul, to the blood-bought mercy seat.
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