Israel and Love

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" (Jer. 29:11). We all need to be reminded from time to time of these words that God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to his people of Israel. Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ goes through difficult times, and sometimes feel as though the difficulty has no end. Hardships are just part of being alive for a while because we live in a world heavily tainted by sin, and has thereby made hardship its companion. Faith in the love and goodness of God is the only remedy for getting through adversity and coming out the better for it. Without faith in Jesus the tribulations of this life just eventually wear people down and slowly destroy them one way or the other. But as our text verse states, God is good and has good plans and designs for all of us, though those plans may go through rough terrain sometimes. Nevertheless the scripture is true that tell us, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). God is at the very top of the totem pole of power, and because he loves us and wants good for us, there is nothing that can stop that good from coming to pass for us unless we disbelieve his love and look in some vain and empty direction apart from him. Continuing a few verses further from my last quoted verse, we are told, "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31)

Going back to our text verse I would say that Job is one of the most prime examples in the Bible of someone that things did not look good for. He lost everything he had, including his health and his ten children whom he prayed for constantly. Then he endured a long ongoing argument of persecution and ridicule about his affliction, from three men who had been his friends. The whole ordeal stretched Job beyond the max, to the point that he longed for death and was deeply grieved that he could not attain unto it (Job 6:8,9). But Job refused to disbelieve God's goodness, and he refused to turn aside to sin; and the end result of his trial was a powerful confirmation of our opening text: "And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters... And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations" (Job 42:10-16).

So we see that God's plans for Job had been very good all along, though he tried his faith as few men have ever been tried. As it was with Job, so it is that God's plans and purposes for each and every one of us are very, very good, though sometimes just the opposite is what it may appear to be and feel to be. The key to coming out of our trials and hardships the way Job did, and realizing God's good purpose for us, is what Job had said about how his ordeal would affect people of further generations: "Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger" (Job 17:8,9). What Job was saying is that those who truly love righteousness would be able to look back on his trial and affliction, and be greatly encouraged by his determination to trust in God's goodness. You may also note that he said this well before his trial ended, and before he was so greatly rewarded and increased. Job knew that God's mind was for his good, regardless of how bad things were; and he knew that in the end things would be well. And he knew all of this because he knew God, and he knew that God is altogether good. So if we refuse to turn to sin for our seeming comfort when things get really bad, the end of our hardships and adversities will be similar to Job's. There is no other possibility in fact, because God's thoughts toward us are always "thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give [us] an expected end." Amen.