Young People’s Blog

“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” (Job 42:10).

“Pray for them which despitefully use you” (Matthew 5:44).

As Elihu had said to Job, God desired only his blessing, despite all the difficulties that He passed him through. At the end of the trial, Job had twice as much as he had before. Once Job had judged his pride and realized that any goodness in him was because of God’s grace, God gave him a marvelous blessing.

However, there was something that Job did first; he prayed for his friends. At first Job was angry with his friends for accusing him falsely, but then he got beyond that, and prayed for them. The Lord Jesus also taught the people to pray for those who used them despitefully. (The word “despitefully” means to treat someone badly). This is good for us to remember, for just as God desires our blessing, so we should want blessing for others, even those who annoy or hurt us.

“Then Job answered the Lord, and said, behold I am vile…I will lay my hand upon my mouth” (Job 40:3-4).

At first, when all the trouble came upon Job, he was ready to find fault with God, for Job claimed to be a good man. However, he was taking the credit for his goodness, when it was all the work of the grace of God in his soul. But when Elihu, and then the Lord Himself, spoke to Job, he began to realize that he had no right to find fault with God. Then his reaction was to say, “I am vile.”

All this time Job was a believer; he was not a heathen. But, like some Christians, he was ready to say that his goodness came from within himself. This is wrong, for naturally we are all sinners. Any goodness in us is because God has worked in our hearts to believe. Let us remember this.

If we see unbelievers behaving in a bad way, let us remember that our own natural hearts are no better. Left to ourselves, we would behave badly too.

“Surely it is meet [right] to be said unto God…that which I see not teach Thou me” (Job 34:31-32).

Sometimes we do not immediately understand what God is doing in our lives. What should we do when this happens? Elihu gives us the answer—the same answer he gave to Job. The right thing to do is to ask the Lord to teach us what we do not understand. If we ask the Lord, He will always show us the lesson He is seeking to teach us.

The answer may not come right away, but He loves us, and wants us to get the blessing out of what He is doing in our lives. Let us not think that God is not treating us right, but rather let us recognize that He always wants to do us good. We learn more through difficult times in our lives than if everything is going well.

“Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said…I also will shew mine opinion” (Job 32:9-10).

Yesterday we spoke about the respect that is due to those who are older than we are, and who usually have more knowledge and experience than we do. However, as our verse for today shows us, this is not always so. Job’s friends really were his friends, and they thought that they were helping him. However, they had the wrong idea about what was happening to Job, and they made things worse for him, rather than helping him.

As we saw yesterday, Elihu was a younger man, but he had the mind of the Lord, and was able to be a help to both Job and his three friends. He understood that all difficulties in our lives are not punishment from the Lord, but may be for other reasons. He did not know why the Lord was allowing such awful problems in Job’s life, but he knew that it was wrong to assume that it was because Job was a wicked man.

All this is a good lesson to some of us older ones, for we are not always right. When we have said something, and younger ones ask questions, it is good for us to listen to them. A number of times in my life someone younger than I has pointed something out to me, and I had to realize that he was right, and I was wrong.

“Now Elihu had waited till Job had spoken, because they [Job and his three friends] were elder than he…I [Elihu] said, days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom” (Job 32:4-5,7).

Elihu was a younger man, but he had listened to all that Job and his friends had to say. He saw the fault in all of them, but he wisely waited until they had spoken, because they were older. This was right, for older ones usually have more knowledge, and definitely more experience, than young people.

This is a very good lesson for all of us who are younger to learn. In the modern world, it is sad to see many younger people acting in a disrespectful way towards older ones, and thinking that their knowledge and opinions are just as good as those of their elders. We should be willing to listen to older ones, and allow them to speak first. The older ones may be wrong, but there is a right way and a wrong way to present our thoughts to them. We should always show proper respect.

“I am afflicted and ready to die from My youth up…Thy fierce wrath goeth over Me” (Psalm 88:15-16).

There are a number of prophesies about the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament, and here is one of them. Right from the time He was born into this world, the Lord Jesus knew that He was going to the cross, to suffer and to die. Then, while on the cross, He could say that God’s fierce wrath was going over Him. Surely the Lord Jesus felt the sufferings He experienced from the hands of man, but it was the suffering for sin, at the hands of God, that He felt much more. All of God’s anger against sin was placed upon the Lord Jesus during the last three hours of darkness on the cross. The Spirit of God led the writer of this psalm to say these things hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus suffered for sin on the cross.

Yes, the Lord Jesus suffered all this, in order that you and I might be saved. Have you thanked Him for all that He did for you?

“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26).

Job lived hundreds of years before the Lord Jesus came into the world, and he did not know as much as you and I know now, for the New Testament had not been written in Job’s day. However, he had a great deal of light from God. He knew that there was a Redeemer who would come, and that one day that same Redeemer would stand upon the earth.

Also, Job knew about resurrection, and he knew that one day, in the resurrection, he would see God. All this was revealed to a man who lived way back in the time of Abraham. All this is wonderful, but how much more you and I know, in this day of God’s grace! We know about a resurrection of believers, and that it will occur at a different time than the resurrection of unbelievers. We also know that when those believers who have died will be raised again, they will have glorified bodies. We know too that before the Lord Jesus comes to set up His kingdom, He will come to take us home to be with Himself. You and I live at a wonderful time in this world’s history!

“God…which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” (Job 9:2,9).

“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” (Job 38:31).

Just think! You and I today can look at the same constellations of stars that Job looked at! These constellations are mentioned twice in the book of Job. On the first occasion, Job mentions them. The second time, God Himself challenges Job as to whether he had any influence over the stars, and uses the same names that men had given those stars. Job had previously thought he was able to argue with God, and even accuse God of being unjust. This was serious, but the Lord gradually worked with Job, and eventually he understood what God was doing. But first of all Job had to be humbled, and deal with his pride.

Sometimes we too may think we can find fault with what God is doing, and I have known some Christians who did this. Of course it made them very unhappy, for God is always just, but He does not have to give account to you and me. More than this, everything He does in our lives is for our blessing. Let us remember that.

“Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off?” (Job 4:7).

Job had three friends, and all three of them tried to be a help to Job, when all these things happened to him. However, they did not understand what God was doing, and they told Job that he must be a wicked man, for God to have allowed all these troubles in his life. Our verse today was said to him by one of his friends. Sadly, they did not realize that God sometimes allows trouble in the lives of good people. It is not necessarily punishment, but it is to teach them something. There are many reasons why God may allow trouble in our lives, and when it happens, we should go to Him and ask Him why He allowed it.

Job’s friends were no real help to him, even though they sometimes said things that were true. But they jumped to conclusions and falsely accused Job.

This is a good lesson to us, for if someone is in trouble, let us first of all show some sympathy, and not jump to a conclusion as to why it happened.

“Let the day perish wherein I was born” (Job 3:3).

“Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matthew 26:24).

Job did not always do what was right. When he did start to speak, after he had lost his wealth, his children, and his health, he said that he wished he had never been born. He felt so miserable that he wished he had never come into the world. There is one man in the Bible about whom it was definitely said that it would have been good if he were not born, and that was Judas Iscariot, who betrayed the Lord Jesus.

If we know the Lord, and have accepted the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we will spend an eternity with Him in heaven. It is worth any amount of suffering to be able to have this at the end of our life down here. There is no doubt that Judas went into a lost eternity, and it would definitely have been better if he had not been born. But we will see Job in heaven; he did not need to wish he had never been born.