Posted on 02/27/2021 8:27:11 AM PST by JAG 5000
We hear a lot about God and Job's sufferings. The book of Job has 42 chapters and some 99% of the verses talk about Job's sufferings. However nobody knows how long Job suffered and some interpreters think it was a relatively short time. Some think Job suffered for a few months and others think Job suffered only for days.
To the best of my knowledge all the events in the book of Job could have occurred within 30 days. If so, then Job suffered a very short time.
But here is even better news: After Job suffered and endured his testing, God, in His Mercy and Grace gave Job MORE than he had before he was tested, and then God gave Job 140 years of the good life.
Its reasonable to believe {based on the narrative in Job 42} they were a happy and blessed 140 years.
"The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part." Job 42:12
"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." Job 42:16-17
Bildad correctly predicted the happy restoration of Job when he said: "He {God} will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:12
So?
So God's Mercy and Grace restored Job and he had MORE blessings than he previously enjoyed and then God gave Job 140 happy good years. And even more important than that, God gave Job eternal life in Heaven. Job was an Old Testament believer that reaped the benefits of the blessing of John 3:16 which says that God loved the world and gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God restored Job and God has a Plan to restore the world. God has a Plan to fix the world that men have messed up. What kind of Plan is it? The Cross. What kind of Person is God? The kind of Person that will die on a Cross because He loves the world and desires to restore it. So what kind of Person is God? The kind of Person that leads from the front, where the pain is.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.James 1:2-4. I hate problems and trials but by grace I'll take perfect and complete, lacking nothing if problems and trials is what it takes to get there.
So I made a nametag at work that said Job.
People either called me Joe or Bob.
Job 29:2 supports this, with Job saying, “Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me;"
I’m sure that’s true.
I don’t know why I thought it was many years - maybe because that has been the story of my life - but the results have been much, much more than worth it.
Too bad, though, about all of Job's original children - you know: The ones who died after God sent a "great wind," destroying the house they were in - just to "test" Job's faith. They don't get "restored." A house collapses on them and they stay dead - no additional blessings than they had previously enjoyed, no additional "happy, good years."
Regards,
"Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he's had his leg off it is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies.
If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he'll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has 'got over it.' But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man.
There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. "
I, personally, don't like the implication that "pain" or "suffering" always has an end, and we recover in a certain amount of time, or in our lives. That's just not true in the lives of many Christians who have progressive diseases like a neurological disease, ALS, for instance, or cancer, etc. Their suffering is not ended in this life.
There is a release, but it won't be this side of heaven.
These verses say it best. It's the end of the "by faith" heroes chapter in Hebrews 11 where one after another were delivered by faith and whose lives were saved:
Hebrews 11:
36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
AFter Job was restored by the Lord, imagine how he felt the next time he heard a storm coming. Imagine how he felt when he heard rumors of invading gangs. It would be hard to not get afraid.
God Questions Job
6 Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind and said,
7 “Now tighten the belt on your waist like a man; I will ask you, and you instruct Me.
8 Will you really nullify My judgment?
Will you condemn Me so that you may be justified?
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