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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
James 5:11b
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
When it comes to the matter of persevering through times of suffering, it can help to try and find someone else who has persisted themselves, someone who can inspire us while giving us hope that a favorable outcome is possible, even if it doesn’t seem that way.
As Christians, we gain a lot of encouragement through the people we read about in the Bible, people who stayed the course and trusted God in spite of their circumstances. In this regard, one would be hard pressed to find any greater role model for resolve in the midst of hardship and suffering than Job. In the Old Testament book that bears his name, we read about these tragic events in chapter 1 that came upon him in rapid succession.
1. All his oxen and donkeys were stolen and his servants tending the animals were killed with the exception of one who escaped to make the report.
2. Fire fell from Heaven and burned up all his sheep and their servants, again with only one spared who told of what happened.
3. Like the oven and donkeys, his camels were taken by another group who killed the servants caring for the camels, and only a single servant lived to tell him about it.
4. Finally, a messenger came to tell Job that all his sons and daughters died when a mighty wind came and caused the house they were in to collapse.
In a single chain of events, Job went from the proverbial penthouse to the outhouse, losing all his children and the livestock that formed his wealth base and livelihood. After receiving the onslaught of bad news, the scriptures tell us that Job tore his robe and shaved his head before falling to the ground in worship and declaring:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21
Incredible words proclaimed from the deepest pit of sorrow and dismay, words that cry out, “I don’t understand why all this is happening to me Lord but I trust you and give You thanks knowing that you work things for good.”
For the next 41 chapters, we find Job wrangling with his faith as he tried to make sense of the God he served and the terrible tragedy he had experienced, particularly the justice of it all. In Chapter 40, we find God come to the forefront, confronting Job out of a storm in the following exchange:
The Lord said to Job:
“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Let him who accuses God answer Him!”
Then Job answered the Lord:
"I am unworthy—how can I reply to You? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more.”
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm:
“Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.” Vv. 1-7
The Lord then goes into one of my favorite discourses in the Bible as He reminds Job of who He is and how utterly subordinate Job was before Him. Having been put in his proper place, Job says the following to God:
“I know that You can do all things; no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”
“You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures My plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”
“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:1-6
After finishing with Job, the Lord turned his attention to the three friends who had visited Job in the midst of his suffering: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite. He ordered the three to offer a burnt offering in Job’s presence and after they did, Job would pray over them. The three friends did just as the Lord demanded and then accepted the prayer Job had lifted up before doing something absolutely miraculous. We read about it in Job, chapter 42:
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years. Vv. 10-17
In the end, the Lord not only restored Job to where he was before the catastrophes struck but blessed him even well beyond it. He made a new family and lived long enough to enjoy time with his children’s children and their children’s children and their children’s children, “children to the fourth generation”. This long life that was “full of years” had terrible calamity within it but in the scope of the bigger picture, the :Lord’s mercy was greater than what Job has persevered through, a truth James writes about in the second half of verse 11 in James, chapter 5.
You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
The Hebrew Christians James was writing to would be well aware of Job and his story from the horrifying beginning to the blessed, happy ending. Through it, we find James, the brother of Jesus, reminding his readers of the two ways believers can experience the fullness of God when they persevere through difficult times in life.
First, they can feel the Lord’s perfect compassion and love first hand.
The Lord could have punished Job for allowing his faith to waver and questioning his God’s justice but He didn’t. He understood that Job was human and was speaking out of his pain and distress. And so He not only received Job’s repentance fully as recompense for his actions but He then did something else.
He showed Job the perfect nature of His mercy.
The Lord had allowed a lot of trouble and trial to come upon Job but in the end, He fully restored him, blessing him with what he had lost and then some. Truly Job experienced what the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed in his Book of Lamentations:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 3:22-23
Friends, the God of Job and Jeremiah is the same God we worship and adore today. He isn’t a God who shields us from adversity but rather seeks to use it for our good, super-heating our faith so to skim away the impurities, leaving us a better version of ourselves once He restores us back to better days.
Let us like Job strive to persevere through whatever circumstances we might find ourselves in so that we can experience God’s fullness ourselves through His steadfast compassion and blessed mercy.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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