Are you ready for a challenge to your heart and your faith today

Are you ready for a challenge to your heart and your faith today? Well, I've got one for you here. It is the testimony of Job which he gave to his 'friends' who had spent a good deal of time and effort accusing him of heinous crimes that he was not guilty of. While reading this account of Job's life and ways, remember that he was not filled with the Spirit of God like Jesus has made available to new covenant believers. In fact Job lived a good while before God even gave his law to Israel, so he didn't have that advantage either. What he did have was an honest heart which he kept in agreement with his conscience, and a real desire to please God. That is why God spoke of Job on this wise to Satan in the beginning of the book: "And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" (Job 1:8). I have to tell you that what you are about to read is nothing short of remarkable in terms of moral goodness and soundness, and the truth is it should convict every honest heart that reads it. A number of years ago I heard that a man who lived behind me whom I had never actually met, had died alone in the hospital. I was heartbroken about it and wept before the Lord that I had not been there to visit him in his time of great need, even though I wasn't altogether aware of what was going on, and didn't know him personally. I felt very badly about it and confessed the same to the Lord, and the holy Ghost impressed upon me powerfully the following scriptural account. I read it, and I got the message loud and clear. I should have been more aware of the man's dilemma, and as far as I was concerned, I was without excuse. So are we all if we fail to live up to the testimony of a man who was not filled with the holy Ghost and did not even have God's law in writing to go by. So read Job's sobering testim7ony, and fear God:

"I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid? For what portion of God is there from above? and what inheritance of the Almighty from on high? Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity? Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps? If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to deceit; Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity. If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands; Then let me sow , and let another eat ; yea, let my offspring be rooted out. If mine heart have been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid wait at my neighbour's door; Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her. For this is an heinous crime; yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges. For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase. If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb? If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail; Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof; (For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;) If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate: Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

For destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure. If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much; If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above. If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him: Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul. If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied. The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller. If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom: Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and went not out of the door? Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book. Surely I would take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me. I would declare unto him the number of my steps; as a prince would I go near unto him. If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain; If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life: Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended" (Job 31). All I can add to this powerful passage of scripture is another short and powerful passage: "Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:26-29). Amen.