Day 5 – Job 6-9

Talking Points

• Job is despairing. His friends have given him wrong advice. Instead of comforting him, they have added to his woes. They cannot think of any other possible cause than Job’s guilt and sin before God.
• In the midst of such great suffering, life seems pointless, futile, empty. Job wonders why God has turned on him. He says that the only way he can be consoled and even rejoice in “unsparing pain” is because he has “not denied the words of the Holy One.” Job says that even if he hasn’t done wrong in this situation, who is a mere man that he should argue with God? He asks, “How can a man be in the right before God?”

Thoughts

Job is called a righteous and good man when his life seemed to be in order. Now, as great suffering and hardship engulf him, this good man is left considering the deep things of God. Job must survey himself at the same time that he weighs what he knows of God. In the midst of that profound introspection, Job makes the realization that man needs an “umpire” — a go-between to even approach such a holy God. He suffers for a lack of this mediator.

Isn’t it interesting that much of our true consideration of ourselves and of the nature of God also occurs in times of great duress? Isn’t it just like God that many of us find Christ — our Mediator — in such times? Instead of steering us always into the path of temporary comfort, God uses those times to reveal the source of lasting comfort, Jesus.

“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…”
– 1 Timothy 2:5-6