Is There a Benefit to Faith in the Lord? (Job 1-5, 11-15)

 

Pain. God made man in His image, so we return the favor. Our golem mind create ideals out of what we want the Holy One to be as Mike Mason wrote in his book The Gospel According to Job, “The moment we start thinking that we can discern some pattern to the ways of the Lord, we begin to draw dangerously close to idolatry. We come to worship the pattern...” (Pg.40) A good man repents but a great man tries to repent of the sins of others by account of divine incomprehensibility and his love for others, but divine justice will come both on those with integration and those without it. We hold war only as the evils of man, but the Holy One pits man against man so all people might be naked before Him.

 .Except for Solomon, Wisdom is rarely given to those in power who need it. She reviles herself to the poor and downcast for they are worthy of her. Pain teaches the wisdom of the ages. The Holy One gives life to the lowest to show His glory as James 1:9-11

“But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.” NASU        

It is not enough to instruct people, but to experience it. Pain is not an expression of divine abandonment but righteous love. We see the hand of the Lord from pain as Hebrew 12:6 says, “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” NASU It is faith in the Holy One that sustains one in pain.

 When one faces eternity and dwell in the pain of body and soul, integrity is meaningless, but “only in sorrows can one love.” Those who take the punishment for others restore them. Each soul, two bodies for both spouses make up a soul. Even as Job married Dina, the “humbled” daughter of Jacob, a tzaddik seeks a spouse to raise up to her full potential. But humanity is currently broken clay so spouses are broken together as Lenard Cohan said in his famous song “Hallelujah,” “ And love is not a victory march It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

 Those not currently experiencing it can never truly embrace words in pain. The words seem foreign and fearful. When we try to artificially find solution to the pain, we lose the beauty that only pain can give. Some have argued that this the reason righteous suffer. When those who seek the Lord suffer, they hold to faith and have the writ to the integrity that the Holy One gave them as St. Patrick wrote this in his poem The Deer's Cry:

“I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In all good deeds done unto the Lord”

I was born on Yom Kippur, the day the Holy One judges the world, but there is judgment everyone’s day of birth. Darkness covers some pain, for pain brings darkness to the soul. Sadness is not an expression of lack of faith but a declaration of hope for Tikkun Olam. Sorrow is the greater teacher of holiness as Mike Mason wrote in his book The Gospel According to Job, “When there is stabbing pain trust cries out. It is mistrust, fear, and suspicion that keep silent.” (pg. 58)        

 

We will never touch holiness until we are empty before the Lord. Our own understands evaporates considering the divine as John Calvin said in his sermon “Job 11:1-7,”

“And in effect we bee done here to understand, that whensoever we debate after what manner man might stand before God, we must not allege our owne prittle prattle, nor think to prevayle by vayne rhetorike; we must be beaten downe and dismayde by considering the majestie of God” (Translation Arthur Golding 1584)

A person may do good things, but it is meaningless if the heart is not pure. Because Sherman ordered his men to rape civilian, US Army raping became the cause of the War of American Aggression regardless of the Emancipation Proclamation. Rote obedience can save a culture, but not a soul. The Lord does not want that obedience as 1 Corinthians 13:3 says, “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” NASU. To sin and seek forgiveness can be better than never sinning if the sinner loves the Lord. 

 

All things are open and naked before the Holy One for righteous judgment. Only the Lord can truly judge if one has walked in the integrity of His Torah. But humility has sinned so that the Torah took on flesh and became a sukkah in our midst taking on the rightful punishment for our sin so we might be right with the Lord as Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” NASU

 

Sometimes we do not hear the Lord. Healing does not always come to those who seek the Lord because the children of the Most High’s home is Israel under the rule of Messiah.  People scoff at the Holy people because they hate the Holy One. We see the Excellence of the Holy One in the suffering of His people as Lenard Cohan’s song A Little Darker says, “There's a lullaby for suffering And a paradox to blame But it's written in the scriptures And it's not some idle claim You want it darker...I'm ready, my Lord.”

The world that we see is merely a temporal veneer. The snow kisses. Gabriel rescues those who love the Lord from the wickedness of this age. Death is not the end for those who placed their trust in Yeshua as John 11:25-26a states, 'Jesus said to her, " I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die."' NASU  

Test the spirits. Present your cause to God. Respect the Lord. Repent from your sin