As the new year has begun and now we find ourselves over half through the first month, I am again reading through the Bible. I really want to encourage you to be in the Word everyday. A reading plan that will guide you each day is certainly a great thing for you. I am reading the Word again this year in chronological order. It is a wonderful way to see again how God from the beginning has, is and will work His plan throughout history and thus in our individual lives.
I have just completed the Book of Job and what a book it is to read. As you know, God allowed Satan to affect Job’s life on satan’s contention that Job would turn away for God. We know that everything that is done is such to cause Job’s turning from God. He loses family, possessions, respect and his own wife tells him in the latter part of Job 2:9
“…Curse God and die!”
The next verse provides some insight as to what is occurring and what God is doing. In verse 10 we read that in response to his wife’s suggestion, Job first rebukes her: “You are talking like a foolish woman” (Job 2:10a). He then asks, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10b) His words are commended by God: “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said” (Job 2:10c). Job’s response was a godly answer to the pain he was facing.
Certainly there is a lot to consider in the Book of Job. There is much dialogue with Job and others. Job doesn’t understand why God has allowed all that happened to him. Those who offer their perspective are very focused on Job being punished for sin.
When you come to the end of book in chapters 38-42 it is a place where we are reading what I will call the God ask where were you and who are you questions of Job. It is a powerful portion of scripture and so wonderfully describes God and who He is and what He has, is and will do.
In Job 38:2–4 God asks Job,
“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.”
This line of questioning continues through chapter 41. In Job 42, Job responds verses 1-6
1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
2 “I know that You can do everything,And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4 Listen, please, and let me speak;You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,But now my eye sees You.
6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
As the book comes to an end, we see all that has occurred come to fruition beginning in verse 7 until the end of the chapter.
7 And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.
8 Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”
9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord commanded them; for the Lord had accepted Job.
10 And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
11 Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold.
12 Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys.
13 He also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch.
15 In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.
16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations.
17 So Job died, old and full of days.
When we each consider our own lives and then read about Job’s, we should conclude that they aren’t that bad. Could they be worse? Yes they could and things could be better.
So trust God and what He does each day in your life.
In God’s Grace,
Elbert Nasworthy
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