Re:Verse passage – Job 42:5-17 (day four)
Job is doing business with God. He is confessing his sin of declaring what he did not know or understand. He declares that he now clearly sees God for who He is. Job repents of his sin.
In God’s conversation with Job, He also has some choice words for the three friends. Job’s friends have been giving false words to Job. They were telling Job that all suffering is the direct result of sin…false theology! Some of what they said about God was true, but their representation of God and His ways was not totally accurate.
If the friends’ theology had been accurate, we would have to blame the suffering of today’s persecuted churches on their own sin. Evil is in the world and there is often not a rational explanation of why suffering happens. God is sovereign and we cannot always see how His infinite plan is at work. We do need to be reminded that God is God though!
Before we leave the study of Job, I would like to affirm the desperate need for studies such as this in the Church. God’s sovereignty, the inscrutability of His ways, the purpose of suffering, and the mere fact that in this fallen world, we will all suffer, saved and unsaved alike, are topics of study and discussion rarely heard in Evangelical circles these days. Delving into the life of Job through this critical book of the Bible, has helped me grow in my understanding of and faith in, a sovereign God who owes me no explanation of His ways, yet still loves me (and all of us) enough to suffer and die on a cross for my sake. “I know that my Redeemer lives…” Job 19:25a