Title: Refinement from God/Job 30:16-31
Content Job 30:16-31
Refinement from God
At any given time, there are times when God inflicts indescribable suffering on anyone whom He can use. It is to refine him and make him a vessel worthy of being used in the future. Just as a rusty ax becomes a new ax if it is heated in a furnace and beaten over and over again, God creates human resources in the same way.
Even Joseph is one of the biblical figures. After God gave him a wonderful dream, he sent his brothers to die, and eventually sold him into slavery in Egypt. From this point of view, the great hardships that Job suffered can be truly a refinement given by God.
If so, what methods will God use when refining us? Let's take the case of Job to find out.
##### 1. Throw it away
In verse 19 of the text, Job said, "God has cast me in the middle of the mud, and made me like dust and ashes."
At that time, he felt that he had been abandoned by God, and he felt extreme sorrow. That's right. When God tries to make a person a great talent, He sometimes makes him go through great hardships and hardships. It makes you realize that you are in a dead-end state that you have been abandoned by God.
Joseph experienced the desperate situation of being abandoned by God by being thrown into a deep pit by his brothers.
--Not only this, but we are well aware of the word Jesus cried out on the cross.
Even though Jesus was the Son of God, he went through such a dead end. It is said that even lions use the cruel method of training their young by dragging them up a high cliff and throwing them to the ground. Likewise, when God tries to refine us, He tests us in circumstances that seem difficult for us to handle. Therefore, I hope that even if we encounter such an extreme condition that we think that God has forsaken us, we can rise up with greater courage.
##### 2. No answer even if you cry out
Job also described the bitter experience of that time like this: Verse 20.
Truly, not answering my cry is like the last reminder that you and I have nothing to do with you.
--It is to develop the power to stand up on your own by turning away.
##### 3. Threatens with death
Job soon recounted the worst thing he had ever experienced. Let's look at verses 21 and 22 of the text. “You have turned to cruelty to me, and have consumed me in a great storm.
This is a confession of what he had been lost in the Four Sutras. When God wants to use a person greatly, He even drives him to death.
Today, we consider the Apostle Paul to be the greatest disciple of Jesus Christ. However, you should know that he had to go through countless crises before he became a great apostle.
2 Corinthians 11:23...<Are they the servants of Christ, speaking frantically, I am even more so, because I worked so hard, I spent more time in prison, I was beaten countless times, and I almost died...>
So, through such a refinement, Paul became an outstanding apostle.
--After being released from the prison, Dostoevsky wrote immortal masterpieces such as 'Crime and Punishment' and 'Brothers Karamazov'. After being released from the guillotine, John Milton also wrote brilliant works such as 'Paradise of Paradise' and 'Paradise of Happiness'. John Bunyan wrote 'The Journey of the Old Man' in a prison that is no different from the death penalty.
When the Catholic Church, the official religion of England, oppressed Protestantism, he was also oppressed as an evangelist of Protestantism.
During his 60-year life, he had to spend 12 years in prison... But while he was arrested with handcuffs on his wrists, Bunyan comforted the members with the following words: "Don't be afraid. Now we have been deprived of the opportunity to hear and preach the Word of God, but God's truth has not failed. We should rejoice in being persecuted rather than persecuted."
That is why the saying that a person can only leave a masterpiece after passing through death is born. What more can we say when it comes to creating someone who can take on the role of God's ambassador? Therefore, we should put our hope in God even when we reach the worst state, saying, 'Now, I am dying.'
There is a proverb that one becomes a person only after going through a lot of hardship. If so, what would that refinement be like when God wants to use people as his tools? Job became a great biblical figure after being thrown out by God and crying out to him, but he could not find an answer and wandered to death. Therefore, we must have faith to accept not only great and small hardships, but also any worst difficulties as God's refinement.