Job was not a modern day Classic car collector but he WAS a man for whom God Himself had a tremendous amount of esteem. We see the growth and maturity of a man who yes, had definitely more faith in God, than those around him, including his wife. But when the time came for testing, he did what a lot of us would do today - rationalize and question.
As we examined in the previous two segments of this short series on Job, The Lord Himself took the occasion of Job and his friends' insidious reasoning to, basically, explain God to them and ALL mankind specifically. THEN the Lord anointed Job with a new mission - Prayer Warrior! Yes, He did!
Read from Chapter 42: "7 And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. 8 Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”
Three times God used the words "My servant Job". When God called His top generals all through Scripture, He did so twice (Moses, Moses....Samuel, Samuel....). When He says something three times, He is deadly serious and one had better pay attention!
Now the record does not go into any detail or mention of Job actually praying. However, we know, in the Spirit, that he did! God does not call a man "My servant" three times and then predict that His "servant" WILL do something in order for Him to forgive those three bloviating friends who escaped punishment because of God Himself granting Grace....if He did not mean it!
Two things here - Job obviously threw himself headlong into maturing his new-found relationship with the Almighty, Whom he understood fully for the first time and secondly, the mercy of God extends to us even when we deserve nothing but death. That mercy is Grace powered and only available by prayer and the sacrifice of self. The sacrifice of self is a repentant heart and a love for the Lord above all else.
Hence the result of all of this is - RESTORATION. The end of the actual first book of the Bible (in Chronological time) says (from Job Chapter 42): "12 Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. 13 He also had seven sons and three daughters.
14 And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch. 15 In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.16 After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. 17 So Job died, old and full of days".
Are you in need of Restoration? Is your internal spiritual GPS as completed wrong in its coordinates as those three friends of Job, who thought they spoke for the God Who disciplined their folly? Or, are you like Job, with some Faith, who sought Truth and found a calling? If the answer is both - a category into which most of all fell into, at some point in our lives - then there is so much Hope. All we need to do is go to Job 42:1-6 and acknowledge our error and make it right, with the Great God of Heaven.
The key thing to remember in "making it right" - as Job set out to do in this entire process, is that God is still in the Restoration business. He can take our entire broken down wills, spirits, souls and bodies and make something new and beautiful that can shine just like those exquisite priceless classic cars, which are becoming just as rare now, just as true followers of Christ are.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come....2 Corinthians 5:17
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