Trusting Fully in Adversity

Job 13:1-19

1 "Behold, my eye has seen all this,
My ear has heard and understood it.

2 What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.

3 But I would speak to the Almighty,
And I desire to reason with God.

4 But you forgers of lies,
You are all worthless physicians.

5 Oh, that you would be silent,
And it would be your wisdom!

6 Now hear my reasoning,
And heed the pleadings of my lips.

7 Will you speak wickedly for God,
And talk deceitfully for Him?

8 Will you show partiality for Him?
Will you contend for God?

9 Will it be well when He searches you out?
Or can you mock Him as one mocks a man?

10 He will surely rebuke you
If you secretly show partiality.

11 Will not His excellence make you afraid,
And the dread of Him fall upon you?

12 Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes,
Your defenses are defenses of clay.

13 "Hold your peace with me, and let me speak,
Then let come on me what may!

14 Why do I take my flesh in my teeth,
And put my life in my hands?

15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.

16 He also shall be my salvation,
For a hypocrite could not come before Him.

17 Listen carefully to my speech,
And to my declaration with your ears.

18 See now, I have prepared my case,
I know that I shall be vindicated.

19 Who is he who will contend with me?
If now I hold my tongue, I perish.

Job let his self-appointed counselors know where he stood with God.  He heard the words they offered, their accusations and condemning judgment, and let them hear the fact that the circumstances did not escape him either.  But he then turned the conversation towards God for the understanding of the circumstances and answers as to the reason he was suffering in such adversity.  Job told his friends that they were useless doctors of his soul and body, liars by their assumptions and accusatory diagnoses.  If they stopped talking to him like this, that would be real wisdom, instead of inserting words in God’s mouth as if they spoke for Him as sent by God.  They each needed to be looked at by God for their own diagnosis.  Fear of the LORD should make them watch their words as He sees into their motives and judgmental ill will towards His servant Job; remember that these accusations and attacks originated against Job by satan.  Because their words were clay and ashes in substance and reasoning, Job stopped them long enough to let him speak, knowing that he was in God’s sovereign omnipotent hands anyway.  What would come was providential.  Job would continue to trust God as in the beginning when he had lost all (Job 1:21-22, 2:10), even if it was to death.  This did not stop him from reasoning with God about the reasons for his suffering, however.  He still defended his uprightness attested to by others (including God).  He knew deliverance was only through the LORD by agreeing with Him about his sin, confessing the truth and not being two-faced in denial of it while espousing his goodness.  He therefore speaks through these chapters to justify himself while faced with his friend’s accusations.  Job trusted that God would vindicate him in the end because that was His character, and refused to keep quiet as they kept at him.  He knew ultimately that nobody could oppose him if God was for him (Romans 8:31, 33).  This is our defense now in Christ, as we have a greater understanding of grace and justification of deliverance from sin’s penalty which we all deserve in spite of the adversary’s accusations (Revelation 12:10).  Our uprightness, our righteousness, is Christ’s alone, not our own.  This would be the lesson for Job to learn in the end as well as our reminder, but there are many other jewels throughout concerning God’s character and providential working to glean from this book also!  Since we see Job trusting fully in adversity, though it may not always appear to be this way, we can therefore learn many of the same lessons God taught him.