JOB: Job is the Example of Repentance, Forgiveness, and God's Acceptance and Restoration through Faith in Christ Jesus; "the Lord had accepted Job. And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends!"

Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. (Job 42:1)

In the previous studies, after Jobs friends had tried to accuse him of being evil and wicked, then a young man, Elihu, who had heard the previous conversations tried to make himself a spokesman for God; finally God spoke, out of the whirlwind, and said: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 38:1-2) God dismisses everything that Job's friends and Elihu had said.

"You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6) 

Before Christ Jesus physical manifestation on the earth, God would reveal himself to certain people.  The Lord said about Moses, “Hear now My words:If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the Lord." (Numbers 12:6-8) 

The Prophet Isaiah said, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ... So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:1, 5) Even Jacob (aka Israel) said, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (Genesis 32:30)

But when Christ Jesus came, He said, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me." (John 12:44-45) When Stephen was martyred, he said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56) We still can see God today, through His Holy Spirit that is in us after we accepted His free gift of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. (Ephesians 1:17-21)

Once we see God for Who He really is, in all His glory and majesty, we will also see ourselves for who we really are; therefore I abhor myself, and repent. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (James 4:8-10) And that's exactly what God did for Job, He lifted him up!

And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8) God didn't address Elihu because he wasn't one of Job's friends; but he did address the other three because they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him. (Job 2:11) But they had ended up doing the very opposite.

So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord commanded them; for the Lord had accepted Job. And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold. (Job 42:9-11) 

Repentance, forgiveness, acceptance, restoration - in order to have a relationship with God, we must first repent; when the people asked Peter how to be saved, the first thing he said was, “Repent,..." (Acts 2:38), to confess our sins and ask God for forgiveness. The second thing we must do is forgive others. Jesus said, "Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37) “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15)

Once we do what we're supposed to do, then God will accept our sacrifice, but not the sacrifice of old that Job and later the children of Israel were commanded to do. Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come— in the volume of the book it is written of Me— yo do Your will, O God.’” Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:5-10)

Then finally, God will restore us into a relationship with Himself, through our faith in Christ Jesus. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 2:18-19) If God did all of this for Job because of his obedience to offer the animal sacrifices, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9:14-15)

Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch.  In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. (Job 42:12-15) 

Remember, Job was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. And seven sons and three daughters were born to him. Also, his possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large household, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East. (Job 1:1-2) When God restored Job, He gave him back double everything he previously had. Jesus promised that if we turn from the comforts and familiarities and attachments of this world to Him, for His name’s sake, we "shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:29)

Job only had ten more children because his other children were saved and with the Lord. Remember again, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did regularly. (Job 1:4-5) We can't save anyone, but we can make prayers of intercession on their behalf. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16) And Job was so upright that he treated his daughters as fairly as he did his sons, For there is no partiality with God. (Romans 2:11)

After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. So Job died, old and full of days. (Job 42:16-17) AMEN!