The Greatest Man In The East

There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity.   Job 1:1

This verse does not mean Job was perfect, but that if people were looking for anything to stick on him, they wouldn’t find it. Job “feared God” and “stayed away from evil” (Job 1:1). That means he experienced the same temptations the rest of us do, but he had learned to push them off. He avoided evil, and the reason he was able to do this was because he feared God.

Job lived a highly successful life under God’s blessing. In those days, wealth was measured in livestock. We are told that he had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred donkeys (see Job 1:3). His net worth was very impressive.

Job also had seven sons and three daughters (see Job 1:2), and it seems they were the one shadow on his horizon. Their lives were an endless round of parties, and his sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes (see 1:4).

Their lifestyle seems to have been built around the pursuit of pleasure. If you had asked them what they were living for, they would have said, “We live for the weekend.” Job did not like this. After the parties were over, he used to offer a sacrifice for each of his children. “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts,” he said (Job 1:5).

Most people probably would have thought that Job’s sons and daughters were fine, upright people, but Job was worried that when the wine had loosened some of their inhibitions, they had cursed God. Job was wonderfully blessed, but his one nagging fear was that what was going on in his family was not pleasing to God.

Parents who fear God and are well acquainted with their own souls will be grateful for their children’s successes yet aware of the battle going on for their hearts and minds. Are you engaged in the battle against sin in your own life? If you are a parent, do you recognize the battle going on in the lives of your children?

For further reading, see Job 1