“Seek God,” he said, “Plead with the Almighty for mercy” (Job 8:5). Such was the encouragement of Job’s friend. Go, do it, man! “If you are a pure and upright surely then He will rouse Himself for you” (Job 8:6a).
Job’s response? “Truly I know that it is so” (Job 9:2a). Job’s other response? Easier said than done.
If one wished to contend with Him,
one could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
(Job 9:3 ESV)
Go talk to God. We say it all the time. But that’s because we are at peace with God (Rom. 5:1). But what if God seems against you? What if rousing God felt more like riling God? That’s sure how it seemed to Job. Then, to “contend with Him” would surely be to have the tables turned and to be tongued tied as He contends with you.
It’s one thing to go talk to our “Our Father in heaven” (Mt. 6:9), it’s another thing to approach Almighty God. It’s another thing to enter the presence of the One who Job says can pick up Mt. Everest in His anger and make it disappear, or shake the earth out of it’s place, or keep the sun from rising, or cover up the stars in the sky (Job 9:5-7). How do you walk up to Him who “does things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number” (9:10)? How do you have a face-to-face conversation with someone you cannot see (9:11)?
Go ask for mercy, you say? Easier said than done.
Before this chapter’s done, as he considers the possibility of an audience with God, Job is going to realize he needs an arbiter, one “who might lay his hand on us both” (Job 9:32-33).
Guess what? We have an Arbiter. Praise God we know the Arbiter. We know the One who brings God to man and man to God — who lays His hand us both. The Son of God . . . God incarnate . . . fully God and fully man . . . Jesus.
Ask for mercy? You bet. For we can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16) because “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1Jn. 2:1). We can draw near in our sin, our sorrow, and our suffering. We can draw near when we understand the cause-and-effect of our circumstance and when we don’t. We can draw near, asking for mercy, because we have an Intercessor who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Heb. 7:25).
Oh, what a Savior!
Oh, hallelujah!
Easier done than we can say as we pause to remember and reflect on the full implications of His finished work on the cross and His forever work at the Father’s right hand.
Only because of His overflowing, abundant grace. Only for His all-deserving, forever glory.
Amen?
