STAND FAST IN THE FAITH’

New Zealand Tablet, 29 April 1915, Page 11

STAND FAST IN THE FAITH ’

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the N.Z. Tablet by Ghihbl.) 0? *V * v ifc* MK? rrrrrr*>-<-9M>l-. I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH- ‘ For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth.' And I shall be clothed again with my skin and in my flesh I shall see my God, Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another : this my hope is laid up in my bosom*’ (Job xix., 25-27.) ) , The author of these remarkable words, written some centuries before the Redeemer came, had felt the iron of suffering pass deeply into his soul and had . been driven by- the reproaches of well-meaning friends into something like despair. The sorrows of life had accumulated to such an extent that death seemed the only way out. But as he looked again into its depths, the place of the dead appeared to him in grim reality £ * a land of darkness and murk A land of thick darkness and chaos, ~ ' Where the light itself is like pitch.’ Nor could he ever return to see on earth his character vindicated. If death were the end, then (and this thought for a Jew was intolerable) ho must go down to posterity as a godless man. In the hour of midnight gloom the first gleam of hope appears. Job is mourning over man’s short and troubled life, and swift, untimely end. The tree of the garden is cut down, but there is always hope that it will sprout again. The roots may be rotten with age, yet at the scent of water life comes back and buds are put forth. But man dieth, and is laid in the dust; He yieldeth his breath, and is gone. As the waters fail from the sea. And the river dries up and is vanished, Till the heavens be no more, he shall not awake, Nor be roused out of his sleep.’ For- all that the hope of the tree suggests to the despairing soul a possible hope for man. If man after death may live again, if God would only hide him in the place of the dead until His wrath is past, and then ‘ appoint him a set time and remember him’ —if there were anything in this hope, it would be easy for him to wait patiently and wear life’s crown of thorns, till death came to bring happy release; and when at last God called him to the fair blue hills of the Land of Promise, he would answer joyfully and forget the sorrow of the past in the joy of his new life with God. This hope, however, seems too fair—what is he but a ‘ phantom, watching from a phantom shore ? ’ The doors of Night are shut tighter than ever. * The waters wear the stones, The floods wash off the dust; So Thou destroyest man’s hope—--1 He sleepeth, and riseth no more. Thou prevailest against him for ever; Thou changest his face, and dost banish him.’ Once more Job thinks of the lot of the dead in the place of death, and it appears utterly miserable. They can know nothing of what happens on earth. ‘ His sons are honored, but he knoweth it not They are brought low, but he marketh it not.’ Even the sleep of death is not unbroken rest, for ‘ His own flesh hath pain. And his own soul mourneth.’ Finding no comfort in the thought of death, the sufferer turns back to the living. His friends perhaps may be moved to pity him—but he finds them cold and unsympathetic. If he could only write his defence in a book, or engrave it on the rock, men in days to come would read it and he would be vindicated, but the record on the rocks is impossible. •

•f" ■■ This God-fearing man, however, had .- not served and lived in prayerful communion with -his^Maker for nothing, , and light now shines in the darkness. ' Past experience had . taught him something of the sympathy of God, and now ho feels that he can claim and trust it. Job himself may die, but his cause is just and cannot die. His Redeemer will stand upon his dust'and vindicate -. his life. .Nay,, anticipating the fuller light of Christian revelation, he looks forward to the better world in which he shall even see his Redeemer. But I know that my Redeemer liveth, N ■••■■•■-..- And that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth : And after my skin hath been thus destroyed. Yet from my flesh shall I see God; Whom I shall see for myself, And mine eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is laid up in my bosom.’