The Faithfulness of Job

It just continues to amaze me. So many people are still persecuting Job. How? By saying the exact same thing about him that his three (or four) persecutors said. I mean it really amazes me that people say that God was trying to get something wrong out of Job’s life. I had a discussion with a brother in the Lord just the other night about this very thing, and it isn’t anywhere near the first such discussion that I’ve had with people on this topic. It was said in this case that God was humbling Job because of his pride. Are you kidding? What was it that God said to Satan about Job in the beginning of the book? “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” (Job 1:8). That doesn’t sound like a man with a pride problem to me. I would love to think that God was talking about me like that, wouldn’t you? And after Job was afflicted beyond imagination, without cause as God himself said; and after Job had his say about the whole thing, the scripture plainly states: “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22; Job 2:3). And after that, for thirty five chapters we have the discourse between Job and his three ‘friends,’ and later a fourth man. In this discourse there are a lot of things said about Job and about God on both sides of the conflict, with his friends saying that he had been afflicted for wrong doing, and Job disputing their claims.

After the discourse was finished God came on the scene to first let Job know that God is far above all men, including him; and then to reprove his friends for their folly. So what was God’s report of Job and his friends at the end of all of this? “And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath” (Job 42:7). So where is this faultiness of Job that so many people today speak of? It isn’t in the Bible’s account of what took place, that is certain. But I will tell you where it does come from. It comes from the same spirit that Job’s persecuting friends were under. Anyone who can read the book of Job thoroughly and find fault with Job, is simply under the influence of the same exact spirit that influenced his friends to accuse him of wrong doing, when in fact he was not guilty, even as God himself confessed: “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him WITHOUT CAUSE” (Job 2:3). My friend, all I can say is, case closed. Oh yeah, and also that Job is found NOT GUILTY! God bless