The troubled Job    

Abraham braced himself. He almost lost his wife, Sarah, and almost gave the patriarchal baton which belonged to Isaac to Ishmael. You can continue unwaveringly in faith in the word of God. For one hundred and twenty whole grueling years Noah did not stop preaching the same gospel of salvation, most often sounding like a broken record. I know it is hard to do but do not pay any attention to the accompanying troubles of the trials. Keep, in memory, the promises of His Word and let that propel you to victory. When trials descend on you you feel despondently all alone (and… trust me this kind of plight is capable of setting you up for a soliloquizing rant of raving lunacy). You wish the ground upon which you stand should just open up, swallow you up and just end the predicament!

Maybe Job meant to say much more than that, when Satan was allowed to attack him. The Book of Job chapter 3 verses 2 to 11 go thus:

2 And Job spake, and said,

3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

Job faced horrendous trials, even from wife.

It is never funny when the whole world comes crashing down as experienced by Job. This man of faith said something written in gold of faith, which kept him till his day of sweet vindicatory victory. Knowing fully well Whom he had believed and served, he began, in Job 19:23-25, “23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! 24 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!” Then came the golden addendum pronouncement of verse 25, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:”. We also have the glorious words of Job 23:10 “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”. Before the trials he was the richest in the east (Job 1:3). When on trials, all his children he took care of died in one fell swoop! His wife, the mother of those children, left him and as if that was not enough, his very good friends of many decades taunted him in no small measure, to challenge his spiritual probity –gruesome if it should come from good friends! At the end of the trials, “So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses” so says the Bible in the Book of Job 42:12. This estate, compared to that of the first verses of Job chapter one, doubled. It, no doubt, made him the richest in the world!

                                                  Jacob’s displeasure with Leah

Leah was looked down on by her younger sister cum marital rival and was hardly given any attention by Jacob. She was shattered! God made her happy and famous by giving her Judah through whom the incarnation of our Lord Jesus was made possible. With great fear of the unknown Jacob himself approached his uncouth twin. By the time he came face to face with his vindictive brother the LORD God had carried out operation “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD…” (Proverbs 21:1) on Esau. So has the LORD done for many and will do for you if you will exercise faith in Him, the Most High. Joseph could have enjoyed his luscious master’s wife carnally, which, no doubt, would have cost him the Prime Ministerial post of Egypt, the world’s first super power and the cradle of modern civilization. “I wanna win, I wanna win ‘cos there is so much to lose”, as the song taught by Rev. Chris Okotie goes. Joseph remembered what Jacob, his father had taught him back at home and confronted the huge trial before him with the words of Genesis 39:9, “There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? (The emphasis mine). Joseph dreaded sinning against God, and that is the bottom line!                    (…to be continued…)

Click here to read the 3rd part.

Read the 1st part here

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