When He Hath Tried Me - Glenn Conjurske

When He Hath Tried Me

Abstract of a Sermon on Job 23, Preached on February 10, 1999

by Glenn Conjurske

“When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” Here we have a living and vibrant statement of faith. It was spoken when Job was shut up in the furnace, when God would not answer him, and when he could find no way out. This is the proper sphere of faith. This is where faith lives and moves, in the dark, in the fire, in the prison, in the crucible, in the vice, when God has shut you up and left you there, and answers none of your cries.

“When he hath tried me.” Job was not speaking of some theoretical proposition here. He was in the midst of the trial, and you will be there too if you haven’t been. It is the way of God to try his saints, and oh, he knows how to go about it. When God tries a man, he will know that he has been in the furnace. God knows how to arrange every circumstance, to give you the bleakest outlook, the keenest disappointment, the most exquisite pain. He thrust Job down from the height of position and prosperity in one day, and set him on the ash heap, covered with sore boils, surrounded by unfeeling friends, to misjudge and accuse him, and beside all this, God himself shut up the heaven over him, and would answer none of his pleading. “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” he says, “that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.” I would tell him that I would not treat my child this way. I would plead my weakness. I would plead the cleanness of my hands. I would plead the reproach which now stains the righteous and the God of the righteous, even in the eyes of these three friends, when they see the righteous thus cast down. I would tell him how the wicked mock and triumph. “I would fill my mouth with arguments.” All this, if I could find him—-but I cannot. “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”

All my cries avail nothing. All my tears are wasted. None of my arguments move him. “My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food”—-but all this avails me nothing. “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him.” He tries me, and I cannot escape it, nor move him to relent.

Now there are two reasons why God tries his saints. One is to change what they are, and the other is to display what they are. God works both of these together, by the same means, for the same afflictions which prove what we are serve also to purify us. “Before I was afflicted, I went astray,” the Psalmist says, “but now have I kept thy word.”

“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:67 & 71).

No doubt all of Job’s afflictions were used of God to purge him, but that in fact was not the primary purpose of Job’s trials. He was not tried to change what he was, but to prove what he was. The refiner may put his gold in the fire to purge away its dross, but he may also put it there merely to prove that it is gold. This, we know, was the primary purpose of God in putting Job in the crucible. We know this from the first and second chapters of the book. God challenged the devil, and said, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” The devil returned the challenge—-told the Lord that if he would put forth his hand and touch all that Job had, Job would curse him to his face. God gave the devil permission to make the trial. This was not to change Job, but to prove that he was what God said he was—-to prove that he was what he professed to be.

Now God knows how to go about his work. He knew how to try Job. He knew what sort of furnace to put him in, and how hot to heat it. No doubt Job had some dross, though he was the best man on the earth, and no doubt the furnace purged some of it away, but that was only a subordinate purpose. It was God’s purpose to prove what Job was. God has set his hand to try Job, and therefore when Job has wept all his tears, and plied God with all his arguments, he can only say, “He is in one mind, and who can turn him?” “What his soul desireth, even that he doeth.” “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him.” He tries me.

Now observe Job’s faith. One facet of faith is that it takes all things from the hand of God. It says, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?” It sees no betrayer, no Pharisees, no fickle multitude, no Herod, no Pilate, no soldiers—-only “my Father.” This is the viewpoint of faith, and so speaks Job. “When he hath tried me.” He sees no wicked Chaldeans, no ruthless Sabeans, no heartless, accusing friends to add insult to his injury, but only God. “When he hath tried me.” “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me.”

You may suppose that if you are a saint of God, you will be tried also. God will put you in the vice, and apply the pressure. He will put you in the furnace, and apply the heat. He will shut you up in the prison, and leave you to languish there. And what then? Will you look about for someone to blame for your plight? This is the common way of pride and self-will and unbelief. All this pain might be spared me if it weren’t for my unreasonable mother, my hard-hearted father, my foolish husband, my rebellious children, my careless friend, my heartless employer, my wicked neighbor, the officious deacons, the proud executive director. You blame them, and it may be nurse the blame into resentment, and so your trial makes you worse instead of better, and thus you exercise all your wits to prolong the trial. When God puts you in the crucible and begins to blow the fire, you ought by all means to drag out all your dross, and expose it directly to the flame. By that means, if any, you might shorten the duration of the trial, or mitigate the severity of the flame. But no: you cling to the dross, and hide it in your bosom, and compel the Lord to heat the fire hotter.

Now to blame anyone else for your plight is directly against the way of faith. Faith sees only God. Indeed, I tell you plainly, when God tries you as he did Job, you will be compelled to acknowledge his hand in it. Who but God could have tried a man as Job was tried? When God puts you in the furnace, you will then say, Who but God could cause such exquisite pain? Who but God could arrange such impossible circumstances? Who but God, who knows my inmost heart, could deal out such keen disappointments? Who but God could shut up every avenue of escape?

God knows how to touch your tenderest part. God knows every avenue of your soul, and he knows exactly how to direct every arrow to the very place where you will feel it most. “The poor man’s cow dies,” an old proverb says, “and the rich man’s child.” The rich man would feel nothing if a dozen of his cows died, and God intends for you to feel the trial. He knows how to blast your dearest hopes. He knows how to thwart your fondest expectations. He knows how to weary and wear you down. He knows how to give you bitter disappointment where you expected deliverance. Joseph expected deliverance from the mouth of Pharaoh’s butler, and no doubt passed every day with great hopes, after the butler was restored to his place. But it was God who tried him, and it was not yet time to open the door of his prison. He watched and listened day by day for the news of his release, but every day added to his disappointment. He no doubt prayed most earnestly—-and the God who had given the butler his dream could no doubt bring the plight of Joseph to his remembrance—-but “Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgat him.” Joseph’s gleam of hope therefore died away, and his prospect was made only the more bleak, for the ray of hope which had lightened it.

But God remembered Joseph. The butler forgot him, but God remembered. God only appears to forget his children when he tries them. This is part of the trial, and perhaps the most necessary part. But I will tell you this, that no man is ever so conscious of his gold as when it is in the fire. No man puts his gold in the fire and forgets it there. When God puts you in the fire or the prison, this is not to destroy you, but only to refine you, or to prove that you are gold. The case may indeed appear hopeless to you. You can see no light at the end of the tunnel. You are straitly shut up in the inner prison, and your feet fast in the stocks. Your circumstances are hopeless already, and every change which comes is for the worse. You have no prospect, and no hope.

But faith regards none of this. Faith looks not at the darkness of the night, the heat of the fire, the straitness of the prison, the unreasonableness or the hard-heartedness of men, the folly of father or mother or husband or wife, the wickedness of rulers, or the injustice of judges. Faith looks up to God, and says, “I shall come forth.” No matter how tight the prison or how dark the dungeon, “I shall come forth.” No matter how great the folly of friends or the malice of enemies, “I shall come forth.” No matter how long or how dark the tunnel, “I shall come forth.” Maugre all the malice of men, and all the power of Satan, “I shall come forth.” My groans will be turned to songs. My tears will be turned to smiles. My disappointments will cease. My reproach will be taken away. Those who now “spare not to spit in my face” will honor me as before. The years which the locust hath eaten will be restored to me. I shall be delivered from all my troubles, and all my fears. “I shall come forth.”

Yet more, I shall come forth unhurt. “I shall come forth as gold,” refined and purified if I need it, but no way injured. The fire cannot hurt the gold. The gold is precious to him who owns it, and he would not hurt it. If he blows the coals and fans the flames, this is to try the gold, but not to hurt it. If he puts the bellows into the hands of your friends, or your enemies, or the careless, or the unreasonable, or the malicious, or the foolish—-or the devil himself, as he did in Job’s case—-it all remains just the same. The fire cannot hurt the gold, no matter who works the bellows. “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth—-as gold.”

Glenn Conjurske