Topic: Don’t Misinterpret God’s Patience [Wednesday March 22, 2017]
Text: Job 21:1-21
Key Verse: “Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?” (Job 21:7).
How vulnerable are people who have stereotyped minds about God! Job’s friends were such people who would not listen to other people before passing their comments. They threw overboard fair hearing – a situation that would neither help the victim nor the comforters.
Job pleaded with his friends not to deny him of a patient and fair hearing in this matter. He said after telling his own side, the “comforters” might decide to either console or mock him. He took this stand because he knew men are liable to making errors in judgment. It was only to God who cannot make any mistake he wished to lodge his complaints. He however wished that his complaints would make his friends to ponder and wonder on the unsearchable power of God to afflict someone of whom they knew no evil.
How wise they would have been if rather than apportioning blame on Job, they reverenced God. We cannot account for what God does in allowing sinners to prosper and godly people suffer. We are to adore Him for His unsearchable wisdom and power. It is evident in this text that God can, in His providence, allow the wicked to have prosperity not because He cannot judge or punish them, but He is being patient with them resting on the notion that His goodness will lead them to repentance.
Unrepentant sinners will be punished no matter the level of prosperity and achievement but saints will be consoled eternally. This is an age-old truth that bears witness to the unquestionable discretion of God to take charge of the universe. This divine disposition allows no error no matter the stand of men.
Thought for the day: Jehovah is God who is above reproach.
Bible Reading in one Year: 2 Samuel 23-24
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
