Job's Gold

Job - by Leon Bonnat (1880)

If you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, or a well-read non-religious person, you’ve heard of Job – and the first three see him as an example to generations who followed him, including our own and those coming after us. Perhaps best of all when he cries out:

Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! (Job 23:3 KJV)

At this point in his book, he has lost everything he owned, his ten children have been killed, his body is broken out in boils, his wife is berating him, and his three friends are demanding he confess to the horrible sin that has brought all of this on him. He cries out that he wants to go to God’s throne to confirm his innocence.

The first part of the book tells us that Satan is the source of all the evil that has befallen, and God allowed it. Since all the Bible is about God, how does that compute with:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 KJV)

It computes very well when we understand that we are not reading “all things are good to them that love God,” but understand that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Even the horror of losing his children did work together with the whole story to be good.

When all is for His glory, and we remain faithful before Him, we shall come forth as Job knew he would:

But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. (Job 23:10-12 KJV)

I wonder if Peter had Job in mind when he wrote:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 1:7 KJV)


Do we feel as certain – should we stand before God – that we would come forth as gold, our feet having held steady in His steps, that we have kept His way and His commandments? Have we esteemed God’s word?

Job prayed for his children – do we? (Let me answer only for myself – yes. I pray for my children, their children, and their children’s children. I cannot answer for their errors, but I can and do pray that they hear God’s word with open hearts to seek Him and His leadership. I am blessed by their fruit of His spirit and their hearts open to His word. I pray here that you are able to see that in yourself, too.) And that faithfulness paid off for Job just as it will for us, even if we see it only in heaven:

So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters. (Job 42:12-13 KJV)

What an end to the story – his holdings doubled – except for his children. You think? Think again. Job was given twenty children. Since we’ve read the remaining books, we believe there is a heaven and a heavenly reunion where Job’s twenty children rejoiced with their parents that all things faithfully did work together for good, through all the bad, to rejoice together with God.

You might want to note that Job even sacrificed and prayed for his friends who had not believed him, even though they believed God. In the end we see absolute proof that bad things can happen to good people who love God. And, we were told who caused those bad things. He does still work evil in our world today, all designed to turn people against God.

We read of those who are faithful, and their (and my) why:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5 KJV)