Page 73 - Job
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Christians fall so often in the very areas where they think they are strong.
Boy, the devil loves to get you there. You are standing on guard on your
weak points and boom. He gets you where you think you are strong. It is
what happened to Job. Job fell, in his patience.
If you really believe the doctrine of depravity, then you would take the
safest course you could take. The safest course anyone who is helpless
can take is to just fall at the feet of the Lord Jesus and cry out for
mercy. Living in total dependence on Him. “Unless you repent and
become as a little child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God”. Job
did not fall in his strong point. He did not fall in his weak point. He just
fell. He had no strong points. He had no weak points. He is just helpless.
The moment you believe that you are strong in an area then watch out. I
Corinthians 10:12 “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed
that he does not fall”. You get wiser and wiser, but not stronger and
stronger. In your mature wisdom you surrender more quickly to His will
and quit your own . In the garden of Gethsemane the Lord Jesus
experienced the struggle of surrendered will. Matthew 26:39 “And he
went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not
as I will, but as thou wilt”.
You give up right away and surrender to the grace of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. You see more clearly than ever before just how weak you
are. If you have any spiritual excellencies, they are borrowed. They are
from God; they do not belong to you. “I am what I am,” Paul said, “by
the grace of God.” I Corinthians 4:6 “For who regards you as
superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did
receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
All right, let me give one other practical warning. I will not develop
this. I will just mention it without a great deal of comment. Job 6:26
“Do you intend to reprove my words, when the words of one in
despair belong to the wind?”
I call this warning “the reproof of words”. According to this verse a
person who is desperate speaks with words that are wind. That is, when a
person is under pressure, he says a lot of things he doesn’t really mean.
That is what this verse is teaching. You have probably known that in your
own lives. Something has come up in your life and you are under a great
deal of pressure, and you say things that you do not really mean to say.
When a person is desperate, Job said, “Do you intend to reprove my
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