“If you say, ‘How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him,’ you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.” (Job 21:34, NIV)
While Job is still on our mind from yesterday, we want to consider the nature of the man.
We know that God commended Job to Satan, saying of him, “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 2:3).
At least this is the Job at the start of the book. Was this still who Job was in spite of his trials and pain, in spite of uncertainties and disconsolation? Was this still who Job was when he chastised his friends with a warning of judgment?
To welcome judgment seems so counterintuitive, but much of God’s kingdom is this way.Well, something more we know of Job is that he placed his hope against that judgment not in his own righteousness but in the Redeemer to come. For this reason, Job feared God but not God’s judgment. Job possessed a faith that did not waver. He himself had said, “No godless man would dare come before him” (Job 13:6)! But Job was not a godless man. God was all he had.
Paul wrote to the Romans, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). If we believe this is so, we should recognize what was going on in Job’s mind. Judgment was not an hour to be feared but welcomed, for in it Job’s faith would be affirmed, his salvation cemented for all time.
Thinking on this, we might have in mind those outstanding and confident golfers who do not shrink from the next level of competition. Here is a chance to put their game to the test, to show that they indeed are among the best—in their club, in their city, in the world. Of course, not even the most accomplished golfers can have the assurance in their own talents that we can have as those whose faith is in Christ. It is by him—and not by ourselves—that redemption will come for us.
In his devotional about our subject today, The Gospel According to Job, Mike Mason wrote that Job “clings more and more to the very thought of judgment, and is actually eager to see it through, being somehow fully persuaded of the shielding power of his faith. His friends, ironically, are so busy terrorizing him with threats of the judgment hanging over his head that they fail to see that this is precisely what Job yearns for.”
To welcome judgment seems so counterintuitive, but much of God’s kingdom is this way. Upside-down and backwards. The first coming last, the servants as great ones. But all this works only with Christ in us. He is the Redeemer, of our faith and of our lives. Our confidence is in his unmatchable righteousness.
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Jeff Hopper
October 4, 2017
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.