TEXT: Job 1:1-5

SUBJECT: Meditations on Job #1: The Man

Job has been called the truest book in the world. I cannot defend the statement, but something way down inside of me says it is so. Job sees life for what it is—a mystery. It is not a mystery to God, but it is to us—to all of us, including the ones who are naïve enough to think they’ve got it figured out. They don’t—no one does. Not Job or his friends, not you or me. Secret things belong to the Lord our God—and He’s not telling!

He didn’t explain His ways to Job and He won’t explain them to us. The Book, therefore, must not be read for the answers. It offers none. What it gives us, though, is something better: a God who can be trusted without the answers!

Because Job is a mystery, I cannot expound it. What I offer is a few Meditations on the Story. They will not be deep or wide, original or learned. But they come from the heart.

The story is set in the land of Uz. The name cannot be found on a map, and scholars differ on where it was, or even if it was a real place. I believe it was a real place, and wherever it might have been, this much is sure: it was not in Israel.

Job was not a Jew, and his tale has not a trace of the Mosaic Law in it. This is both an interesting historical note, and also a veiled prophecy. Though the Lord made a covenant with Israel only, He is not a local god, caring only for His tribe! No, He’s the Lord of all—

Through Adam and Seth, and later through Noah and Shem, the knowledge of God spread worldwide. Most corrupted the knowledge, of course, turning the splendor of an Eternal God into a hideous idol! But some kept the true God in their hearts. And Job was one of them.

The detail, however, does more than look back. It also looks forward. It hints that one day the Lord will be worshiped outside of Israel, that the future is bright, and that some day,

The Ceremonies of Israel, therefore, are both limited in their scope and in their duration. Communion with God does not depend on the Temple or Circumcision, not on the priesthood of Aaron or keeping the Sabbath Day holy.

The holiest man in the world is a Gentile!

Job’s character is beyond reproach—that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. The King James Bible says Job was perfect, and he was, but not in the way we mean it. Perfect or blameless means he was sincere, a man of integrity. He was not a hypocrite, pretending to be good when he wasn’t, or a beginner in holiness. No, he was a mature saint—the same on the inside as he was on the outside. Not sinless, but a very fine man. And, more than a fine man, he was God’s servant Job—none like him in the world.

The man feared God. Preachers are always quick to say, This means respect, and it does, but it means a lot more than that. Job stood in awe of the Lord! He was naked before the All-Seeing Eye and he wanted nothing more than to please the Lord, and feared nothing more than making Him unhappy. Godly fear is a respect or reverence for God, but it’s also a horror of offending Him.

Job’s God is A Consuming Fire.

Job not only feared God, but he shunned evil. The two go together, of course.

The word evil is cut in half by many believes today. We think of evil things as sinful things done. This is half the story, but the other half needs telling too: evil things are good things undone. There are two kinds of sin: sins of commission and sins of omission. Job shunned both kinds of evil. He

A man as rich and powerful as Job must have had women all over him—women much younger and prettier than his wife. But they flirted with him, he looked down. This is good, Job, but is that it? Is that the extent of your holiness? You don’t gawk at pretty girls? You don’t beat your wife? You don’t get drunk?

No, there’s far more to Job’s character than what he didn’t do. The man who had no lust in his eyes had a heart full of compassion. Widows, orphans, and strangers had a place at his table every night.

Everyone took Job for a saint. Including his wife and children. Thirty-five years ago, there was a famous Christian doing relief work in southern Asia. A telegram reached him saying his daughter was in the hospital from a drug overdose. The man stayed in the Far East, and the girl died without her father. While thousands were singing the man’s praise, I wonder what his family thought of him?

Job was not this kind of man! He had ten children and once a month they had a party. Job knew that wine has a way of loosening up your thoughts and your tongue. And so, after the parties were over, he offered sacrifices for them,

Job is a man of God, not sinless, of course, but devout and sincere, obedient, humble, and compassionate.

This kind of character is hard to find anywhere in the world. But especially in the homes of the rich. And that’s what Job was—the greatest of all the people of the East.

The Israelite thought of the East in very much the same way Europeans did long afterward: it was a land of fabulous wealth. The roads were paved with gold, the rivers ran with wine, and the clouds rained down rubies! And of all the Sultans of the East, none was as well off as Job! He was King Solomon, King Midas, and old King Croessus all rolled into one! Legendary wealth he had—

The numbers don’t mean much to us, but they were staggering to the people who first read them. Think about it: how much cargo could 3,000 camels carry? How big a farm would need 500 pair of oxen to plow it? And a house full of servants—eager to cook Job’s dinner, shine his shoes, run his bath, trim his beard, and more!

The Jews did not think a man rich unless he had family to whom he could leave his money. Abraham thought he had nothing as long as Eliezer of Damascus was his heir! But Job had children to inherit his estate—seven sons and three daughters were born to him.

When we think of financial problems, we think of too little money. But too much money is an even bigger problem. It tempts us to believe the flattery rich people hear and to think it secures our future. How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God!

But Job squeezed through the eye of the needle. Riches did not ruin him. He didn’t love money or look down on people who didn’t have it. He didn’t trust it for the future or believe it gave him a free pass to sin.

That’s Job. He’s the richest man in the East, loved by his family and revered by everyone who knows him. He’s got the brains of a businessman, the heart of a poet, and the life of a saint.

If any man in the world had a right to be happy it was Job. But therein lies the rub: no man has the right to be happy. Happiness is the gift of God, given--and taken back--at His will.

No man has the right to be happy may be true, but it’s also hard and ruthless. But that’s not all I said. I said it is given—and taken back—at the Lord’s will. This means:

We should be mindful of our happiness and thankful for it. We haven’t earned it and it’s not ours by nature. It is the free gift of God and a small sliver of His Infinite Love!

We can be content without happiness. Your happiness was not taken from you by blind forces of chance, or even by the malice of Satan or his servants. No, it was the Lord who took it away—the same Lord who gave it to you in the first place. Over a lifetime, your fortunes will change, but your God—and His love—won’t!

An unhappy life cannot be a bad life because it’s the life God chose the Job. And, more to the point, it’s the life He chose for Himself. God became—

In His unhappiness, we find our happiness. If we must share in His unhappiness for a time, it is only for a time. The ones who suffer with Christ will also reign with Him. And not for a year and not for a lifetime, for forever!

That was true in Job’s life—his life here in the world. But that won’t be true for everyone. Not everyone’s captivity will be turned in this life. But this life is not the only life. John sees another life—a life of nothing of Mercy and nothing but…

This world seems unimaginably remote from our world. Especially in hard times, the hours, the minutes—the seconds—drag on and on. Relief seems far off. But it isn’t. For right after his vision, John heard a voice—a voice he knew well, a voice that once whispered in his ear and now fills heaven and earth with its sound,