Job and His Children

One of the main points of our sermon yesterday concerned the number of children Job has at the end of the book. Let me clarify just a bit.

In Job 1:2, we see that Job has 7 sons and three daughters. He loses all of them, tragically, in Job 1:19. This is shocking for a number of reasons. First we see that God has given Satan power over all of Job's belongings (Job 1:12). If that's not dire enough, in verse 19 we see that the power granted extends to Job's children as well.

We should not miss the fact that God is completely in control at all times, limiting Satan as to what he is able to do and what is not permitted. We should also keep in mind that the main point of Job's trouble is to prove that true, saving faith is based on the reality of who God is and not the extent that God blesses the believer. Satan's accusation in Job 1:9-11 was that Job was faithful only because God had blessed him so much. Once the blessing were removed, he claimed, the faith would go away as well.

God knew this was not true because He knew that the source of Job's faith was not Job....but God Himself. In other words, Job wasn't busy trying to conjure up more faith as he went through his trials, God had already granted Job the faith he needed to endure the hardships he was undergoing.

In any event, once Job has been sifted and has drawn closer to God, he is restored. The number of livestock we see in Job 1:3 is doubled in Job 42:12. He had 7,000 sheep in Ch 1 and has 14,000 sheep in Ch 42, 3,000 camels in Ch 1 and 6,000 camels in Ch 42, etc. But when it comes to the blessing of the children, we see in Job 42:13 that he now has 10 again. Shouldn't the blessing be 20 children to be consistent with the other blessings?

Bearing in mind that human spirits are eternal while there is no Scriptural evidence that animals are, here's what God was showing Job in this:

Job still had his all his children. He never really lost them.

Yes, they were separated by death and grief was an appropriate response to their separation. But that separation, in Job's case, was temporary. His first 10 children, because of the faith Job had passed on to them, were in heaven with God. Job had 10 more children right there with him on Earth. One day they would all be united before the throne of God in heaven and Job would clearly see that God had doubled the number of precious children he had as well.

God was showing Job that he had done a great job as a parent and his faith had been passed on to his children.