In his misery, Job said, “There is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again.” That was going through my mind the other day when I was cutting saplings with a chainsaw. The hillside was overgrown and needed to be thinned out, but I kept thinking, these things are going to come back. A tree has hope, Job said, “But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he?”
Read the entire book of Job and you’ll agree and disagree with Job’s opinions about God’s ways. To his credit, Job dialogues with God, he prays “without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Job doesn’t want to accept nothingness in death. “Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity” (Job 14:7, 10, 13-17).
Job’s Old Testament wish is what we see revealed in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. “Conceal me until your wrath be past.” Isn’t Good Friday about the wrath of God against our sin and isn’t Easter the assurance of life, that there is hope? “All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal shall come.” Isn’t that the hope we have in the coming revelation of Jesus Christ to take us to glory? “You would call, and I would answer you…. “You would number my steps.” Isn’t that Jesus saying, “Follow me,” and we do? “My transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.” Isn’t that “Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven”? The Old Testament is revealed in the New!
Diane was worried about my escapade on the hillside, and probably rightly so. When I do it again, and I will, I’ll remember Job chapter 14. Scripture, old and new, grows hope amidst our problems.
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