Job 17:1-16 Broken
Job is at the end of his rope. He is broken in spirit. “Yet the righteous holds to his way” (verse 9a). But he refuses to give in to his friend’s accusations.
As tormented as Job is, he STILL maintains his innocence. His friend’s accusations have not made his struggle any easier. He is ready for death and expects it at any time but he will NOT give in to their charges.
Everyone who sees him counts his circumstances as proof of his wickedness. “Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation” (verse 2). Society has judged him guilty because of his suffering. He won’t go down easy though. Surely there is someone who will believe in him.
Job believes God has closed their hearts to him. He also believes that God won’t let their accusations stand forever. For now though, he is “a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whim men spit” (verse 6). “What is God doing?! How can He, the Lord of ALL do this to me and still say He is just?”
“Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger” (verse 9). No matter how hard his friends come at him with their accusations, he will NOT give in. He KNOWS he is innocent and the more they protest the stronger his resistance becomes. Even to the point where he is taken from this world.
This is a point of no compromise for Job. There are only a few points like that in my life, and my innocence of sin is NOT one of them. I KNOW I have blown it MANY times in my life. What is my point of no compromise though is the forgiveness I have received through Jesus for those sins. I wonder if that is what Job is contending. Is he saying he has NEVER sinned or that God has forgiven those sins and takes them up no more?
We can trust God to cast our sins into the Sea of Forgetfulness and remember them no more when we bring them to Him and repent. But it is harder for us to leave them there. I have sins I KNOW I have brought to Him that I still carry the guilt of around in my heart. I have to learn how to turn loose too! I need to be like Job who says, “What sin? I have none.”
Another point of no compromise for me is that Jesus is Lord. He is the only means of salvation for this world. NOTHING ANYONE says will dissuade me from this belief! He is my everything! Without Him there is NO hope.
Father God, THANK YOU for Jesus. Thank You for forgiveness. Thank You that You love me enough to give me Your Son Jesus as my Savior. THANK YOU Jesus for being willing to give Your life for mine. So that I too can say, “What sin” when Satan comes at me with condemnation. Help me learn to forgive myself too Father. To learn to turn loose of the guilt and regrets. Don’t let me forget the lessons learned along the way but let me move on without fear.
