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Topic: Don’t Misinterpret God’s Patience
[DCLM Daily Manna 2 May 2019 Daily Devotional by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi]
Text: Job 21:1-21 (KJV)
Key Verse: “Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power” (Job 21:7)
MESSAGE:
It was a troubling time for righteous Job as he battle to understand why the wicked would prosper and lord over the godly that was poor. It should be the other way round if God were faithful to His promises, he thought. But Job and his friends, who passed judgment on him in his distress were rather hasty in their deliberations and conclusion that God was unfair in the way He shared wealth and other things in life.
The text shows the deception that may accompany prosperity not based on righteousness or fear of God. This made Job to plead with his friends not to deny him patient and fair hearing in this matter. He said after telling his own side of the story, the “comforters” might decide to either console or mock him. He held his stand because he knew men are liable to making errors in judgment. It is only God that cannot make any mistake. He wished to lodge his complaints and wished that his complaints would make his friends to ponder and wonder on the unsearchable power of God to afflict someone that knew no evil. How wise they would have been if rather than apportioning blame of Job, they reverenced God!
We cannot account for what God does in allowing sinners to prosper and godly people to 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 so that His goodness may lead them to repentance. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Unrepentant sinners will be punished but saints will be consoled eternally.
Indeed, riches and prosperity can never confer joy and peace upon anyone. Only salvation in the Lord can. True and enduring riches lie in knowing and doing what pleases the Lord.
Thought For The Day: Jehovah is God who is above reproach.
The Bible In One Year: Joshua 22-24
