A Limited Offer?

Everyone knows suffering.  Job knew it better than most.  The book of Job records the 'face-off' between God and Satan over the righteous Job and what happened when God gave the devil leave to do his worst.  Loss, loss, and triple loss. 

His three friends came to comfort him but ended up chiding him for being hypocritical.  Then a fourth, Elihu came and revealed a facet of God that we tend to forget.   

Job was written at the time of Abraham, it is very old.  And yet here is the good news of God's redemptive grace way before our era, thousands of years before our 'enlightened' time. Have a look at chapter 33:23-30.

Yet if there is an angel at their side,  a messenger, one out of a thousand,  sent to tell them how to be upright, and he is gracious to that person and says to God,   ‘Spare them from going down to the pit;  I have found a ransom for them— let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;  let them be restored as in the days of their youth’— then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,  they will see God’s face and shout for joy;    he will restore them to full well-being. And they will go to others and say,  ‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right,  but I did not get what I deserved. God has delivered me from going down to the pit,  and I shall live to enjoy the light of life.’

Do you see it?  That sounds like this suffering man has found new life in God, not just healing.

Look at the signs of his rebirth.   Look at the testimony of God's gracious work in his life.    Look at the faith he has that God has saved him and will bless him.

Now, a question, or two.  First, who is the angel in the passage if not a supernatural being?  That word for angel is often translated as 'messenger.'  So can someone nowadays with the good news be that 'messenger' too?  Second, what is the ransom this messenger has found for the poor man here?  Is it not the sacrifice of Christ? This is way before the time of Christ of course. Yet, in those early days, they had animal sacrifices that looked forward to the ultimate laying down of life which Jesus accomplished when he walked this earth.

But the passage closes with wonder, yet a warning:

 “God does all these things to a person— twice, even three times—to turn them back from the pit,  that the light of life may shine on them.

There is a limit to how often God holds out this grace to any of us.  We have loads of opportunities in our part of the world, that is true.  But God touching a person in order to turn them back, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in a life, may not be as numerous as we assume.   Why is that so?

I'll give you my take on it. How many times do you really listen when someone offers you something you do not think you need?  After a while, you only hear words but you do not pay attention.  If you are like me, it just becomes background noise like the adverts on a television we have seen a hundred times.  

Ignored.

So we have moments  God has graciously given, often in our darkest moments of pain or emptiness, like the example here in Job, the times when we cry out to him for help.  Are we going to 'listen' when HE answers and calls to our hearts?

You choose... find the light, healing, and life or remain in the dark with your pain.  It is a limited offer after all.

Image: unknown artist, found on Pinterest.