Page 64 - Job

wasting their time. It is worthless stuff. God is known by revelation! It is
a miracle of God. God teaches this stuff. No defense of the truth, no
explanation of the truth, no refutation of error, no amount of eloquence or
of evidence, is going to take you one step closer to the truth. The truth is a
mighty miracle of God, and it comes as the Holy Spirit shows you. God
reveals Himself to a willing heart; someone who wants to know.
So, for what that is worth, I hand out a warning against argumentation. Do
not argue the things of God with anybody. It does not work. It has never
worked, and it never will. Especially, with the unwilling. Those who don’t
want to know. “Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion
still”. They cannot/will not change. “God doesn’t believe in atheists!” He
has set eternity in every man’s heart (Ecc 3:11) therefore it is a conscious
act of rebellion, not intellectual superiority, when someone chooses not to
bow the knee to the wisdom God put inside of him.
A third warning I find in this section is; Avoid self-pity. Job did not start
off with self-pity, but little by little he landed there. I think the devil’s
most popular sermon is entitled, “Pity Thyself.” Every good sermon, they
say, has three points and a poem. Well, the devil’s sermon entitled, “Pity
Thyself” has three points and a poem. His first point is poor me. His
second point is poor, poor me. Can you guess what his third point is? And
his poem is: “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, sitting in the garden
eating worms”.
Pity means to feel compassion toward someone, and it is all right if you
are talking about someone else. It’s great to feel sympathy and try to enter
into the sufferings of others. But self-pity is when you are feeling that
same compassion toward yourself. In other words, you are living on the
level of your emotions. I think one of the difficulties you will have to deal
with ministering to suffering Christians is offering true comfort and
somehow discouraging self-pity. Once again we come in helpless
dependence to Him who fills us with His wisdom and guidance
for the task.

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