God not only restored Job, but He also restored Job’s three friends. This daily devotional looks at how God recognizes offerings and intercessory prayer and restores us.
Nuggets
- When we sin, we need to confess them and repent.
- God restored twice as much as Job previously had.
Devotions in the Job: The Ultimate Test of Character series
After all this time, Job’s troubles were coming to an end. That is because God was ending the period of testing.
In doing so, God had some things to say to Job’s three friends. He also had some follow-up for Job.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
God Recognized Offerings and Intercessory Prayer
“After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. Now take seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant Job, and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. Then my servant Job will pray for you. I will surely accept his prayer and not deal with you as your folly deserves. For you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.’ Then Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord had told them, and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer” (Job 42: 7-9 CSB)
When we sin, we need to confess them and repent.
Oops. God wasn’t finished with the three friends.
We have to realize a couple of things. The three friends did not set out to speak maliciously to Job. They set out to truly when Job back to repentance.
They honestly thought they were following the path that God wants us to follow. (Bradley compared them to religious professors.)
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They were wrong.
Woodrow explained why they were wrong. He wrote, “They had ascribed a mechanical severity to His administration of human affairs. In addition to that they had shown an acrimonious spirit in their denunciation of Job.” Dickinson said they missed the whole principle of righteousness because they were so focused on their way of thinking on specific doctrines.
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The three friends missed God’s mercy and forgiveness. God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs. God’s forgiveness is His ability to pardon us even though we have disobeyed Him by breaking His laws and commandments.
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In the end, they had sinned against God. They had spoken for God things that He wasn’t saying.
They needed to repent. God spoke directly to Eliphaz.
God was very specific about the offering they were supposed to give. He is like that. He is very specific about the worship we are to give Him.
Did you catch that God told Eliphaz that Job was still His servant? Through all of this, Job was still His.
Did you also catch that God would only accept the three friends’ sacrifice if Job prayed that He would? Two things struck me here.
The first thing took me back to Job 1. Job was acting as priest when offering sacrifices for his kids. Now, he is acting as priests for his friends.
That means, even though Job had sinned against God, he was forgiven and reinstated. That is how forgiving He is.
The second thing is that God mended the relationships of the four friends. We just spent two whole mini-series in the Transformed to Perfection series talking about unity of the disciples. God wants us to live together in harmony.
I wonder how many of us would have swallowed and gone back to the guy we had reamed and asked him to pray for us? Talk about humiliation.
The passage doesn’t say anything about them sputtering. It said they immediately obeyed.
Biggs took this another way. He saw the intercessory prayer a non-negotiable part of Job’s reconciliation. He wrote, “God made an act of piety on the part of Job the condition of his restoration to his lost possessions and dignities.”
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Job had to forgive his friends for biting on him. God didn’t let Job off the hook, either.
Dickinson was right. He wrote, “There had been wrong on both sides.” We can’t forget there had also been right on both sides.
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God knew Job needed to take the focus off himself. The intercessory prayer would help put it on others.
Some would say there was no clear-cut winner. But then, there was no clear-cut loser, either, if you look at it that way. But that isn’t the way to look at it.
Let’s look at it God’s way. The four came together in His name, and peace was restored. They all won big time.
God Restored Job
“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and doubled his previous possessions. All his brothers, sisters, and former acquaintances came to him and dined with him in his house. They sympathized with him and comforted him concerning all the adversity the Lord had brought on him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold earring” (Job 42: 10-11 CSB)
God restored twice as much as Job previously had.
We have to remember, when Job 1 started, Job was a wealthy guy. He had oxen, donkeys, sheep, servants, and camels to lose.
God restored a double portion of Job’s previous possessions. Even though an argument could be made that Job failed the test — or at least didn’t totally pass — God rewarded him.
Does this mean God will always restore a double portion? No.
It is His choice. Spurgeon reminded us that “we are not all like Job, but we all have Job’s God.”
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What God will restore is our joy.
Am I the only one who did a double take at verse 11? Where did brothers and sisters come from? It took 42 chapters for them to show up?
I would not have made it through my divorce if it would not have been for my sister. The first person I called when I got the seizure diagnoses was her.
Where were they for Job in all of his trials? It hurts my heart that they abandoned him in what had to be the worst time in all of his life.
I thought it was interesting that Spurgeon likened Job’s experience to a captivity. He wrote, “Captivity is bondage of mind, the iron entering into the soul.”
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We think of it as bondage or servitude. However, it was also a restraint — it stopped Job from moving forward.
It had so permeated his mind that Job was focused on what he lost and the reason why he lost it. He was concentrating on defending himself to his wonderful friends.
The focus definitely was not on growing his relationship with God.
But all testings come to a close. Hopefully, we have remained faithful to God. If we haven’t — as Job didn’t because he ended up railing on God — we have to repent.
God will forgive us when we genuinely repent.
Making the Connections #1
We can’t and shouldn’t downplay the need for intercession prayer. Intercessory prayer is when we pray on behalf of others.
God wants His children to be unified. He wants us to be a part of each other’s lives. The Homilist called it in “whom we feel a vital interest.”
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It like the vital part. It is essential — indispensable. We can’t do without them.
Making the Connections #2
Satan thought Job was in it just for the blessings. He was wrong.
Has Satan ever told us the same thing? Spurgeon thought so. He wrote, “Sometimes he tells the righteous that there is no reward for their holiness, and then they say, ‘Surely, I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency’; or else he tells them that they only obey the Lord because they have a selfish eye to the reward.”
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Sneaky, isn’t he?
God allowed Satan to test Job so Satan would see that he was wrong about Job. God allowed Satan to test us so Satan would see what he was wrong about us. Spurgeon said that Satan gets to see God’s grace first-hand.
How Do We Apply This?
- Keep our eyes on God when the prosperity turns to trials.
- Even in our trials, we need to be concerned about others.
Trials are hard, especially when they hit us out of left field, like they did Job. We must keep our eyes fixed on God.
Father God. You love us enough to test us. Lord, we think that doesn’t follow, but it does. You love us enough to prove that we do love You — and to show us where we need to work on cutting out the sin in our lives. Help us to keep our eyes fixed totally on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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