The Old Testament

Was Job ‘s life sufficiently similar to yours or to that of others you know that you can happen some applicable rules in it? What are the greatest lessons in Job that pertain to your ain life?

I ‘ve had a few similar things that happened to Job, impact me in my life such as loss of income, loss of a close household member, unwellness every bit good as legion other adversities that every populating individual on this Earth has had happen to them. Some others that I know have had worse fortunes happen in their lives, more similar to Job than I ‘ve had to meet. However, the lessons I ‘ve learned from Job and this lesson can be priceless to me in the hereafter. The book opens with a scene in Eden where Satan comes to impeach Job before God. He insists Job merely serves God because God protects him and seeks God ‘s permission to prove Job ‘s religion and trueness. God grants His permission, merely within certain boundaries. Why do the righteous suffer? This is the inquiry raised after Jon loses his household, his wealth, and his wellness. Job ‘s three friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, come to “ soothe ” him and to discourse his oppressing series of calamities. They insist his agony is punishment for wickedness in his life ( Job 1-12 ) . Job, though, remains devoted to God through all of this and contends that his life has non been one of wickedness ( Job 13-14 ) . A 4th adult male, Elihu, tells Job he needs to humble himself and subject to God ‘s usage of tests to sublimate his life ( Job 32-33 ) . Finally, Job inquiries God Himself and learns valuable lessons about the sovereignty of God and his demand to wholly swear in the Lord. Job is so restored to wellness, felicity and prosperity beyond his earlier province.

As Job was chew overing the cause of his wretchedness, three inquiries came to his head, all of which are answered merely in our Lord Jesus Christ. These inquiries occur in chapter 14. First, in verse 4, Job asks “ Who can convey what is pure from the impure? No 1! ? ” Job ‘s inquiry comes from a bosom that recognizes it can non perchance delight God or become justified in His sight. God id sanctum ; we are non. Therefore a great gulf exists between adult male and God, caused by wickedness. But the reply to Job ‘s tormented inquiry is found in Jesus Christ. He has paid the punishment for our wickedness and has exchanged it for His righteousness, thereby doing us acceptable in God ‘s sight ( Hebrews 10:14 ; Colosssians 1:21-23 ; 2 Corinthians 5:17 ) . Job ‘s 2nd inquiry, “ But adult male dies and lies prostrate ; Man expires, and where is he? ” ( Verse 14 ) is another inquiry about infinity and life and decease that is answered merely in Christ. With Christ, the reply to ‘where is he? ‘ is ageless life in Eden. Without Christ, the reply is an infinity in “ outer darkness ” where there is “ crying and gnashing of dentitions ” ( Matthew 25:30 ) . Job ‘s 3rd inquiry, found in poetry 14, is “ If adult male dies, will he populate once more? ” Once once more, the reply is found in Christ. We do so populate once more if we are in Him. “ When the spoilable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the person with immortality, so the stating that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in triumph. ‘ ‘Where, O decease, is your triumph? Where, O decease, is your biting? ‘ ” ( Corinthians 15:54-55 ) .

The greatest lesson that I personally can take from reading about Job is that no affair what hardship I will confront in life, God is mighty and is in control of everyone and everything in this existence. After Job and his three friends ceased complaining and apologizing about what had happened to Job, a wise immature adult male, Elihu, experiencing dissatisfied and angered that Job should be so holier-than-thou and that the three could happen no solutions, spoke. Elihu said: Though I waited for the older and wiser to give good replies, they disappointed me ; but ( Job 32: 6 ) there is a spirit in adult male to which the Almighty gives understanding ; hence hearken and I will give my sentiment ( Job 32:8 ) . I waited, but none of you answered Job ( Job 32:20 ) so I will reply, but neither with words like yours, nor with flattery or bias. Job 33. ( 9 ) ( First charge ) : You have said you are clean and without evildoing, and yet God punishes you. ( 12 ) In this you are non right, nor in stating that God will non reply. He answers in many ways to chastise and rectify adult male and salvage him from diing. ( 19 ) Man so may endure, but ( 23 ) if an mediator can vouch for his ransom, so God will be gracious to him and will review and regenerate him, and he can recognize God ‘s grace and redemption, for the repentant can be restored and renewed. Job 36. ( 1 ) I would wish to state more in God ‘s behalf ; I will talk truth out of flawlessness of cognition. ( 5 ) God is mightily ( as Job said-9:1ff ) . He despises non anyone, and he preserves non the wicked, nor does he disregard the righteous. ( 8 ) If you are oppressed, he shows you why and admonishes your return. ( 12 ) If you repent non you perish. ( 15 ) He delivers the low and stricken and opens their ear by trials, even you, Job. Job 37. ( 1 ) He is the Mighty One who controls and causes lightening, boom, snow, and rain, and ( 7 ) he seals with his ain seal the manus of every adult male so that adult male may see God ‘s work and knows of his stateliness. This shows me that even though I try to populate a righteous life and even though I think that I am making a good occupation of it, merely God truly knows and if He decides to prove me, it is non my determination or topographic point to inquire why.

As Brigham Young and others have stated: All intelligent existences who are crowned with Crowns of glorification, immortality, and ageless lives must go through through every ordeal appointed for intelligent existences to go through through, to derive their glorification and ecstasy. Every catastrophe that can come upon mortal existences will be suffered to come upon the few, to fix them to bask the presence of the Lord. If we obtain the glorification that Abraham obtained, we must make so by the same means that he does. If we are of all time prepared to bask the society of Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of their faithful kids, and of the faithful Nebiims and Apostles, we must go through through the same experience, and derive the cognition, intelligence, and gifts that will fix us to come in into the heavenly land of our Father and God. ( Discourses of Brigham Young, P. 345. ) “ It is recorded that Jesus was made perfect through agony. If he was made perfect through agony, why should we conceive of for one minute that we can be prepared to come in into the land of remainder with him and the Father, without go throughing through similar ordeals. ” ( Discourses of Brigham Young, P. 346. ) “ You will hold all sorts of tests to go through through. And it is rather every bit necessary that you be tried as it was for Abraham and other work forces of God, and… God will experience after you, and he will take clasp of you and twist your really bosom strings, and if you can non stand it you will non be fit for an heritage in the Celestial Kingdom of God. ” ( John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 24:197. ) “ Every Latter-day Saint who additions a heavenly glorification will be tried to the really extreme. If there is a point in our character that is weak and stamp, you may depend upon it that the Lord will make after that, and we will be tried at that topographic point for the Lord will prove us to the uttermost before we can acquire through and have that glorification and ecstasy which He has in shop for us as a people. ” ( George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, P. 103. ) “ If you are of all time brought into the presence of God and exalted to a place in his heavenly land it will be by virtuousness of the Holy Priesthood ; hence you have got to be proved non merely by being tempted by the Satan, but the priesthood will seek you. It will seek you to the nucleus. If the Lord our God does non see fit to allow other agencies to seek you as in a crucible to turn out you as gold is tried seven times in a furnace. ” ( Jedediah M. Grant, Journal of Discourses 2:14. ) You may look through the streets of heaven inquiring each one how he came at that place, and you will look in vain everyplace for a adult male morally and spiritually strong whose strength did non come to him in a battle. Every true strength is gained in a battle. ” ( Richard L. Evans, rephrasing Phillip Brooks, “ The Sea of Glass Mingled with Fire ” in The Improvement Era, April 1964, p.306. ) Bing human, we would throw out from our lives physical hurting and mental torment and assure ourselves of continual easiness and comfort, but if we were to shut the doors upon sorrow and hurt, we might be excepting our greatest friends and helpers. Suffering can do saints of people as they learn forbearance, enduring, and self-mastery. ” ( Spencer w. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, P. 98. ) “ The greatest tests of life are reserved for the Saints. ” ( Elder Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3:318. )

The Book of Job reminds us that there is a “ cosmic struggle ” traveling on behind the scenes that we normally know nil about. Often we wonder why God allows something, and we question or doubt God ‘s goodness, without seeing the full image. The Book of Job Teachs us to swear God under all fortunes. We must swear God, non merely WHEN we do non understand, but BECAUSE we do non understand. The Psalmist tells us “ As for God, His manner is perfect ” ( Psalm 18:30 ) . If God ‘s ways are “ perfect, ” so we can swear that whatever He does-and whatever He allows-is besides perfect. This may non look possible to us, but our heads are non God ‘s head. It is true that we ca n’t anticipate to understand His head absolutely, as He reminds us “ For my ideas are non your ideas, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the celestial spheres are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my ideas than your ideas ” ( Isaiah 55:8-9 ) . However, our duty to God is to obey Him, to swear Him and to subject to His will, whether we understand it or non.

• The Old Testament Religion A 302 ( Section 2 ) , Ogden, Kelly D. Brigham Young University Department of Independent Study, lesson 15, p. 251-270. Provo, Utah 1993
• Retrieved from: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.gotquestions.org/Book-of-Job.html 12/9/2009
• Retrieved from: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.wcg.org/lit/spiritual/trials/trialjob.htm 12/9/2009