The Vision and the Appointment
BY George H. Warnock
- THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION
It was not Job's sin that prompted Satan to accuse him in the face of God. It was rather his righteousness that Satan didn't like, and he charged Job with opportunism.
Why would Job not serve God, Satan said, You have made him very rich, and put a hedge about him, and protected him, so I can't touch him.
What consolation this ought to be to us in the journey of life, to know that God has chosen us, taken us out of the kingdom of darkness, and translated us into His Kingdom of Love, and Truth and Righteousness – and then hedged us about with goodness and mercy against the wrath of the Evil One!
We may rest assured, that if when we find ourselves in situations where we cannot see the hedge of protection about us, and we feel the onslaughts of the Enemy – we know that it was God who removed the hedge for a season, to try our faith, and to prove us.
Yet all the while He assures us that Satan may cause pain and trouble, but cannot go beyond the limits that God has determined.
We have learned to keep our eyes focused on the Light of the City of God.
We know we must walk circumspectly.
Satan hates righteousness, and when there is a holy standard raised up against him, persecution will follow. It was because Job walked in righteousness that Satan sought an occasion to afflict him.
God's Glory is for His Church, for many of His people are crying out for it. And the heart of God cries out for it, for His Church is intended to be His own "habitation in the Spirit," and the Light of God "in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation (generation)" See Phil 2:15).
The Son of God "loved righteousness and hated iniquity." Often, He will allow the wrath of men and of Satan to come against us – to purge us and to try us – as gold and silver are tried in the fire.
The Lord will often allow "the Accuser of the Brethren" to stoke the fiery trials of His chosen one, until He has produced the untarnished gold He is looking for.
Satan is outside the hedge looking in, and trying to torment us with his roaring threats of hate and anger. It is imperative that we be clothed upon "with the whole armour of God," which Satan cannot penetrate.
O the trial of faith that the saints of God have gone through, and always they overcame as they walked in obedience before God.
But Lord – give us the grace now, while we have opportunity, to lay up treasures in Heaven,
When God determined the end to Job's trials, He came on the scene and spoke to Job "out of the whirlwind." He did not accuse His servant; but He asked him about 82 hard questions that left Job totally speechless. O for that glorious Day!
When God will speak "yet once more" from Heaven – and put an end to the strife among men –
God cries out to all people of all nations, "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little" (see Ps 2:6,12).
