Take It Like A Man

Today’s Passages – Job 39-42; Proverbs 16

(Second Milers also read – Hebrews 2 – 5; Memorize Luke 6:38)

“Then Job answered the LORD, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” – (Job 40:3-4)

“Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.” – (Job 40:6-7)

“Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” – (Job 42:1-6)

In these last several chapters of the Book of Job, we see that God is doing most of the talking. Job’s friends are completely silent, and Job doesn’t say much except to declare that he is going to keep his mouth shut. I remember as a child, I would often get into arguments with my brothers. My dad would tolerate the bickering up to a certain point, but there would come a time when he would eventually make us all shut up, and then he would do all of the talking; and we often didn’t like what he had to say. Needless to say, he set us straight. That is what God is doing here with Job and his three friends, He is setting them straight. They were all pompous experts about God in the early part of the book, but now they are strangely silent. Job finally declared that he “uttered [he] understood not”.

My thought this morning, however, comes from vv 6 & 7 of chapter 40. God is rebuking Job and his three friends. I am sure that they did not like what God had to say, but they needed to hear it. People don’t like rebuke too much. It is not very pleasant. However, when it comes to rebuke by those who are in authority over us, we must train ourselves to accept it, and apply it to our lives. God told Job to “take it like a man”. Every once in a while in life, God is going to bring you through something unpleasant for your own good, and you are going to have to “suck it up” and take it like a man. It’s part of life. Trials are part of life; rebuke is part of life. Who do we think we are that we should be excempt from it? We are not God. We need to be taken to the woodshed every once in a while. Learn to appreciate the correction of God, knowing that He corrects us with nothing but our best interest in mind.