If this were court, we’ call it “Job’s Summary Defense.” His summary actually began in Job 26-28, where we saw Job’s first three points:
- God is too great for us to understand.
- I will maintain my integrity before God.
- I will never cease to search for God’s wisdom.
In these last chapters, Job opens up and gets personal. Why hadn’t he gotten personal before this? It may have something to do with the assumption of Job’s friends, that his sinfulness was directly connected with his misfortune.
Job takes time to remember what life was like before Job’s calamities, when he was “in his prime” and “God seemed like a friend” and “his children were still all around him.” He also remembers his life of service to the poor and needy, how men “listened to him, and waited and kept silence before his counsel!” (present company, NOT included!)
But that was then and this is now. Before men listened, now they laughed. Before they honored him as an elder; now they mocked him for his infirmity. Before he had lots of friends; now he was the brother of jackals. Before he had health; now his skin is blackened and falling from him.
All this, after a lifetime of service and holiness! What gives? He had never looked at pornography (Job 31:1), or committed adultery (Job 31:9), or withheld his hand from the poor (Job 31:16), or trusted too much in gold (Job 31:24), or rejoiced at the ruin of his enemies (Job 31:29), or failed to confess his sins (Job 31:33). What gives?
Some sort of an answer is coming; I can feel it!
Your brother in the Word,
Pastor Gary
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