Job 42
Hello dear Friends,
Today we complete our study of Job.
At the end of last year we started going through six final points from this last chapter.
The fourth lesson I see from this chapter is to consider that to sin against God's people is to sin against God.
This thought is suggested from what God says and doesn't say to Job's friends.
Twice, God tells Eliphaz he is angry with them because 'ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath'.
But noticeably, God doesn't say anything about the unkind way Eliphaz spoke to Job.
When we briefly look back at Eliphaz's words to Job each time he speaks he becomes more condemning, unkind and accusatory.
Job's friends might have thought, 'Hang on a minute, it was Job we were having a go at, and we were saying how just and fair God is'. But God is telling them they haven't spoken rightly of him. It seems to me that God is taking the way they have spoken against Job as if they were directly speaking against God.
It reminds me of when the Israelites were complaining to Moses and Aaron about their lack of food in the wilderness, and Moses reminds them that it is God they are grumbling about - it was God that brought them there (Exodus 16:3,7).
And then in John 17 how Jesus speaks of believers being 'one' in him and God - totally united - so to speak against believers is to speak against God.
Isn't this thought provoking?
When we think how often, sadly, we complain about or at fellow believers! Yes, they are sinners, and yes we do sin and upset each other sometimes, but when we hurt them, does it trouble us that we are hurting those who are our spiritual brothers and sisters - those who are spiritually united to Jesus?
Do we consider that our sins against them are as if we are sinning against our dear Lord himself?
Are our angry words and actions not like the very lashes of that whip which tore into his dear back as he suffered for us?
May such thoughts be a check to our hasty words - may it grieve us and keep us praying to be kept loving, gentle and kind.
The fifth lesson we notice is a reminder of how God moves hearts.
We see this in verse 11 when Job's remaining family and acquaintances come and comfort him and help him financially.
Why, we wonder, did they not come before? Why did it seem that everyone had abandoned him?
Was is perhaps because God had kept them from coming until now? Was it because as with the unkindness of Job's friends this was all part of Satan's strategies to try to make Job sin - all part of the trial?
Well, it reminds me how the hearts of all men are in the hand of God, and now, when Job has prayed for his friends - after all their unkindness to him (which is really another lesson in itself!) that now God moves his family's hearts to come to him and comfort him and help him. God had decreed the exact time this was to occur - and they might have been none the wiser.
Do you ever think how wonderful it is that a person behaves towards you in an unexpectedly kind way - a person who you expect to be difficult - an encounter that you have had to pray about and ask the Lord to help you in, and you are amazed at how the person behaves?
Proverbs 21:1 tells us, 'The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will'.
A king - in those days the most important authority in the country - and yet his heart is as fluid as water in God's hands - God can make it change its response and actions in which ever way he will.
Take courage, dear reader.
Is there a difficulty in your life where you long to see a change of heart in the way people treat you? Look at how God brought Job's family and acquaintances to rally round him. After being laughed at, scorned, neglected and wrongly accused, now he was being comforted and helped. This can happen in your case too.
But notice - this happened after Job had prayed for those who had so unkindly treated him. Do you need to pray for the people in your difficult situation? To pray for those who have hurt you and ask God to forgive them?
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Sometimes God delays his answers to our prayers so that it might be more to his glory - we think of dead Lazarus and his grief stricken sisters. Jesus delayed coming to heal Lazarus when he was ill so that when he raised him from the dead it would be more amazing and God glorifying.
How much more striking to Job was his family's comfort now after such a period of isolation and torture. How much more Job would have appreciated it. How it speaks to us of what the Lord can do for his children.
And finally, our sixth lesson from this chapter is to consider verse 12, 'So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning'.
Although this verse goes onto speak of all the immense providential blessings God gave Job in his family, possessions and long life, it struck me how this can be applied spiritually. God can bless the end of our lives more than the beginning, but how often business success brings additional responsibilities and old age is accompanied with increasing illnesses, frailties and worries.
But, what a 'latter end' God's children have to look forward to spiritually! We have a whole eternity of God's presence and comfort to look forward to. A never ending time of living in his love, with no sins or troubles to weary us. Isn't that a 'latter end' blessing more than our short lives which begin on earth, accompanied by all life's problems, disappointments and heart ache?
In his letter to the Colossians Paul encourages us to think more of our spiritual latter end than on earthly treasures which are only short lived and will one day all be lost and destroyed. He writes,
'If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.'
Well, as we finish looking at this book of Job may we be encouraged to continue reading and searching through our Bibles to find those Holy Spirit revealed treasures, the knowledge of Jesus, which enrich our lives here and prepare us for blessings immeasurable in our 'latter end', eternity with him.
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