Job 23 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence

This time Job doesn’t even respond to Eliphaz’s accusations, but desires to take his case directly to the Lord. If only he knew where to find him in order to be acquitted of all these false charges of wickedness by his three friends. He assures himself, though, that if such an opportunity were to arise that his mouth would be full of righteous arguments and that the Lord would immediately recognize his innocence and defend his honor.

Although Job cannot find out the way to God, God knows his way; therefore, Job is confident that when this trial is completed he shall come out as pure as gold. After all, he follows in God’s footsteps, keeps his commands and treasures his holy word. Nevertheless, he knows that God does not change his mind concerning his secret will and always carries out his foreordained plans for every man, which fills Job’s heart with dread and terror and, yet, he refuses to keep quiet over this matter of injustice.

One of the most difficult doctrines in Scripture for us to grasp is the sovereignty of God. To some extent, we understand that God has a plan for the universe and will carry it out according to his perfect will. That should bring us comfort as Christians who have been blessed in Christ. The problem is that God’s idea of blessing is often different from ours, and his means of blessing us is often through trials that we would prefer to avoid. Thus there are times in which we may feel slighted by God or treated unjustly if we focus mainly on earthly blessings such as health and wealth.

What Job is learning through these very difficult trials is that God does indeed know his heart and his way, but Job does not know God’s heart and God’s way. It will take the trial to teach him how to trust the Lord when there are no clear answers to his pain and misery.