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By Theodore Epp
Job 2:11-3:5
Friends can be very valuable. The right kind of friends can help us over the difficult spots in life. But the quality of friendship expressed by these three men left much to be desired.
When they saw Job's plight, they were shocked. They hardly knew what to think. The man whom they had known as the greatest man in their part of the world was ill and sitting on an ash heap. They were silent for seven days, having no comfort to give him. They said nothing, and apparently Job said nothing in all that time. But Satan kept up the pressure, and finally at the end of the seven days Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.
In the wake of all these combined losses, now had come the crowning loss--he began to doubt that God really cared about him. This was a most crucial moment in Job's experience. He cursed the day of his birth, but he did not curse God. He doubted God's care, but he did not lose faith that God existed.
This was when his friends should have helped him. This was when they should have encouraged him, but they did not.
Are we friends to those in need? Do we stand by fellow believers when they experience times of difficulty and stress? Or do we find someone in difficulty and add to their troubles?
"A friend loveth at all times" (Prov. 17:17).
ReplyDeleteVindicated by God
By Theodore Epp
Job 42:7-17
The vindication of Job was a vindication before his "friends." God called him "my servant" and had him act in the capacity of a priest for the three who had so cruelly slandered him. We not only need to see what God was able to do with Job, we also need to see the God of Job for ourselves.
We learn from Job, and this is part of the vindication, that the suffering of the godly always includes a compensation, or a reward. It may not come in this present life. It did in Job's life, and we can be assured that it will eventually come for us. The Bible says so, and that settles it. Job's reward had to come during his lifetime in order to complete the object lesson the Lord was presenting through him. Life for the believer does not end with his life on earth; it continues on into heaven. All believers have an inheritance reserved in heaven.
The Bible tells us in many places that we cannot avoid suffering here on earth. The suffering will not endure forever, though, and we must look beyond it to the rewards God will give for faithfulness.
"Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy" (James 5: 11). God does not delight in our being afflicted, yet through these afflictions His very gracious purposes are realized. This is what James called "the end of the Lord"; the outcome of the Lord's dealings with us includes vindication.
"And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday" (Ps. 37:6).