“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42:5-6

JOB STILL NEEDED TO REPENT!

By Jay H. Graham

From the Chapel Glen Church of Christ Bulletin

The story of Job is a beautiful story! Job was a righteous man of God that the Lord allowed Satan to afflict. The Lord allowed Satan to take all his possessions away, to kill his children, to cause his wife to blaspheme the Lord his God, to take his good health away, and even to cause his righteous reputation to be destroyed. Job’s so called “friends” surrounded him and assumed he had sinned against God. They were convinced Job had some secret evil hidden away that was the cause of all his calamities, and they proceeded to tell him that! It seems they spent many hours arguing against Job, and Job spent many hours trying to defend himself, to be sure. Job did, in the midst of his suffering, attempt to challenge God by demanding God give him a fair hearing. To be sure, in this Job did wrong.

The Lord then spoke to Job at the end of this trial, and he pointed out that Job really had no right to challenge his Creator or demand anything of Him. The Lord spoke to Job of his human frailties and false assumptions in regard to his challenges. To Job’s credit, after the Lord spoke to him, he humbled himself before His Creator, and by implication (at least to me) begged the Lord for forgiveness. He repented in “dust and ashes”. The Lord received his repentance.

At that point the Lord spoke to Job’s 3 friends and pointed out that he, (Job), spoke of the Lord what was right, and they did not. He then asked Job’s friends to make sacrifices to the Lord in Job’s sight and that Job would then pray for them, so that they also might be forgiven. Being the righteous man he was, I am certain Job did just that. His friends were probably forgiven as well

An interesting thing about this story is that, in spite of Job’s real righteousness, he had to repent. He recognized how he had sinned before the Lord and humbly and forthrightly asked the Lord’s forgiveness and repented of his sinful attitude. How did the Lord receive Job’s humility and repentance? It says in Job 42:9, “The Lord had accepted Job.” Job’s repentance took courage! Job knew he was basically a good man. He knew the Lord acknowledged his sacrifices. Job knew the Lord had accepted his good deeds and his prayers. But he still needed to repent!

What a great lesson for us! At our best we are still sinners. We fall short of the Lord’s desires many times throughout our lives, even after we become christians. Even after we have repented and been immersed into the Lord’s Name and blood. These righteous acts of obedience are still not enough to make us sinless.

However, they do aid us tremendously in the beginning process of our becoming more and more like our Lord and Savior. These initial acts of obedience do start us on the path that can and will lead to our salvation, as long as we hold to Him. We then continue to faithfully work at drawing closer to the Lord’s ideals for us by actively being part of and participating in the Lord’s body. We continue to take God’s Word and apply its many godly principles to our lives as we become more like our Savior. We continue to humbly walk in His ways. And yet, even with all these great blessings, like with Job, the Lord requires our constant and continual repentance. Our life-lasting need to bow humbly before our Maker and confess when we do wrong and plead for His forgiveness.

One of the most joyous parts in this process is that the Lord wants our forgiveness and repentance. Why? Because He wants us to be saved in the end! He wants all to be saved in the end, of only we all would be. However, we cannot make it so for our neighbors, our friends our family. We can only make it so for ourselves. Let us humbly do so. For if the Lord required Job’s repentance, He requires ours.