FRIENDS, FAMILY ARE IN THE HAND OF GOD “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 all his brethren came to him, and all his sisters, and all those 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 everyone an earring of gold.” (Job 42:10-11) Two points will summarize these two verses above: 1. It was when Job prayed for his friends that God turned away his captivity: Job first forgave his friends in prayer, before God forgave and answered his own prayer; 2. It was when God gave to Job twice that his friends and acquaintances began to give to him and comfort him: God first gave to Job those things in the spiritual before his friends gave them to him in the physical. I will briefly discourse each of these points under subheadings: CAPTIVITY OF JOB There is something worse than poverty, and that is captivity: Job was not just poor by then, but was in captivity. A poor and wretched man by then would see Job in his captivity and have pity for him, because he has seen something worse than poverty. I don’t know how to describe his captivity, but Job tried to describe it in (Job 19:8-29). He even had worms practically eating his body by then as worms feed on corpses, yet he said in his flesh he shall see God. But one of the emotionally painful aspect of his captivity was that all his friends and brothers were estranged to him and even his wife turned against him (Job 19:13-19): As it is written, “All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me” (Job 19:19). Inspite of all his friends abhorring him and turning against him as enemies to him, Job seemed to be more disappointed in his three friends turning against him than in all his other inward friends including his own wife: He could understand the nature of his wife as that of a woman whose love and regard for her husband disappears when his money disappears; how much more when he is in such captivity, which people would generally see him as a cursed man from God. So Job was more disappointed and hurt by his three friends, than by his own wife. Job believed that even if God will persecute him, his three friends will never hurt him (Job 19:21-22): that is to tell you how he so much believed in his three friends, compared to God, how much more compared to his own wife. Therefore, when his three friends spoke bitterly against him, he could easily forgive both his wife and other friends, but it took him much to forgive and pray for his three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar) which were his inner caucus. However, when he finally overcame and forgave his friends in prayer, he succeed in gaining the forgiveness of God which also turned away his captivity (Matthew 6:14-15). Jesus himself had to be made to experience similar betrayer and denial from his inward friends and inner caucus, but he forgave them all for they did not know what they did. Both Jesus and Stephen forgave men when they were put to death, but the forgiveness by Jesus was stronger than that of Stephen because Jesus had to forgive both his enemies and all friends and brethren who were turned against him (which was more painful), but Stephen only had to forgive his enemies. It was part of the captivity of Job, for him to have practically all his friends persecuting him: Jesus knew that Judas will betray him and knew that Peter will deny him and all his friends will forsake that night, and he knew all these were part of the cup he had to drink from his father. God can sometimes turn one’s friends against him or make his lover to forsake him (Psalms 88:18), so learn to forgive your friends for allowing themselves to be used against you. RESTORATION OF JOB Twice it was recorded that friends came to comfort Job of his sufferings: 1. The first was when his three friends came to him to comfort him (Job 2:11-13), but instead of comforting him, they condemned and accused him, causing him more miseries and emotional wounds; 2. The second was when all his friends came to him and comforted him after God comforted him (Job 42:10-11). Now why could they not comfort him in the first instance, but they later could in the second instance? It was simply because in the first instance, God had not comforted Job so what his three friends were trying to do was futile: As it is written, “A man can receive nothing, except it is given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27). Vain is the help of men, when God has not given help; unless God watches over a city, the watchmen wakes but in vain (Psalms 127:1-2). It was a mistake for those friends to have come to comfort Job when God was not comforting Job; they ended up doing the exact opposite because they were not walking in line with the timing of God – doing the right thing at the wrong time is as bad as doing the wrong thing. Perhaps that was the reason Jesus did not immediately went to comfort Lazarus when he was sick, but he waited for the right timing to go in order to keep walk with his Father. Do not seek for comfort from men without God, neither try to comfort a man without God: Job’s friends became miserable comforters (Job 16:2, 21:34, 7:13), and Job even had to ask them to return back to their homes for he did not need their company but they refused (Job 6:29, 17:10); he was more comfortable without them, than he was with them. Comfort of this world without the Comforter (Holy Spirit) is a mere mockery. None of his friends gave Job anything during his captivity, even his three friends who came to comfort him initially did not bring any gift for him during his captivity, yet they were very rich: infact God had to command them to bring seven bull-cows and seven rams for sacrifice (Job 42:8), meaning they were so rich and could afford them; yet none of them gave Job gifts of comfort during his captivity. But as soon as God gave to Job twice of everything he had before in the spirit, all his friends and families returned to him to comfort him and they all brought gifts to Job which made him twice as rich as he was before. Your help, your comfort and your friends are all in the hand of God: God is the source and sufficiency of all things.
Posted on: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 07:23:06 +0000
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