This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear.Job is having problems and, on top of it all, has the misfortune to be visited by three “friends”.
It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep.
Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled.
A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end.
The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape. There was a form before my eyes.
In the silence I heard a voice say,
‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’ (Job 4:12-17)
And one of them, lucky Job, has a “Word from God” for him. The “word” says, only the guilty suffer. Nobody who has problems is good.
Of course, Job knows differently. He is a good man and righteous before God and yet he is suffering. Why? For no real reason except as a bet between the devil and the Lord. The devil says hurt him and he will turn. The Lord says he will never turn. So Job suffers.
And it was through absolutely no fault of his own. Job’s three friends are of the “name it and claim it” group. They think that anyone who is in God cannot have problems.
They are absolutely wrong.
Hebrews 11 talks about the ones who were faithful to God throughout the Old Testament. It clearly says that the men were faithful yet suffered. Jesus himself suffered. He lived an exemplary life, yet was beaten and killed.
The apostles were beaten for preaching (Acts 5), Paul was beaten up in almost every city he visited, imprisoned and tortured, yet he continued to preach and is held up by the Bible as a great man of God.
And not only that, but Hebrews 11:13 says: All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They didn’t even fully understand the will of God. They just served him.
The man speaking was not right and anyone who says that God will not allow his people to suffer is not preaching truth.
That is why he said, in Romans 8:18: Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. And he also said, in 2 Timothy 3:12: Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
No matter what “words” from anywhere anyone has, the truth is still the truth. God is not going to give a special revelation to change it.
It is God who empowers us to be saved and to be holy, anyway. We serve him, not success in life.
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