Restoration and Renewal: Job's Journey of Faith

"And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." It sounds almost anticlimactic. There's been all this darkness, and gloom, and trial, and difficulty, and it ends in this very positive way. And Job has 10 more children, and his 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels -- in verse 12 -- and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand female donkeys. [00:00:33]

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He's not repenting of the sin that his friends had charged him with, that suggested this was in fact the cause of his trial. Job's case has been vindicated. But he has sinned in the course of the trial, and that is what he now repents of; his attitude toward God that he has expressed in the course of his trial. [00:02:21]

He says, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." He knows God better. He understands a little more of Him. But I think what he understands most is what he doesn't understand. He sees that God is incomprehensible. God is great. God is majestic. God knows the end from the beginning. He doesn't have any obligation to explain to us the reason for our trials. [00:03:28]

And what has Job been brought to? He's been brought to faith, and trust, and dependence. God is a god who can be trusted. There is a purpose. Look at verse 2 -- "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." Yes, this trial was part of a purpose; a divine purpose, a divine plan. [00:04:18]

They're passing through later stages of that grief now, where questions come, doubts creep in, Satan accuses, counselors give, well, just bad advice. They've been driven to the Lord. They've been driven to cast their burdens on the Lord, knowing that He cares for them. They're growing in their relationship. They thought they knew God before. They know Him much better now, and in a different way, and a deeper way. [00:05:44]

Well, the second thing we see here is the reconciliation of friends -- these three friends. Verse 7: "The Lord had spoken these words to Job, and the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: 'My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.'" [00:09:47]

And they do this, and Job prays, and at the end of verse 9, the Lord accepts Job's prayer. Job is to act as a kind of priest. This is probably, you know -- Job lives probably in the period of Abraham or so, maybe slightly before Abraham, but before the Levitical priesthood of the time of Moses. But he seems to be acting here, well, almost as a kind of a priest. [00:13:41]

The point I think I want to make here is there's something, well, there's something Jesus-like about Job here. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Yes, a willingness to forgive. And forgiveness involves their repentance. Do you notice that? It's not Job saying, "Well, I forgive you." People say that, of course. "I forgive you." "I forgive you." But they need to repent of their sin, too. [00:14:21]

Well, the, the point, I think, that I want to make here: trials can make you bitter. I've seen it. I've met Christians who have experienced a trial, a difficulty. It may be 20 years ago. It may be 40 years ago. In one instance, it was at least 50 or 60 years in the past. They'd never forgotten it. Every time I visited, it came up in conversation. [00:16:36]

What happens in forgiveness, when God forgives our sin? He forgets it. It never comes up again. "Love makes no record of wrongs" -- first, it's a translation of 1 Corinthians 13. Love makes no record, keeps no record of wrongs. Well, there are certain people, and they have a record book. You know, they have a digital, little thumb drive and, whenever anybody approaches, it sort of vibrates and it reminds them: "Yes, there's a record here of things that you've done in the past." [00:17:27]

Did Job ever forget the trial? No. If this was a movie, there would be a shot, I think, of the ten graves in the background somewhere, and then the sound of children laughing and playing together. The sorrow is still there. The memory of it is still there. But it has been eclipsed, for a season, with joy. Springtime has come again. [00:22:53]

Then read the book of Job, and see how this man's life ended in the providence of God's kind and sweet benevolence. It's a marvelous ending. But there's more for us to consider. We need to go into the New Testament now. We need to pick up James, because James tells us, "You have heard of the patience of Job." "Well," you might say after all of this study, "Job wasn't a very patient man." [00:23:57]