Remember what Job said to his wife who told him to curse God and die after all the hardship that God allow satan to do in his life? “He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Job and his friends debate about whether this happened because he had sinned. Despite with his friends thought or you or I think, God told satan this about Job -“the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”
In Job, we have an example of calamity befalling him not because of any apostasy; however, in Jeremiah 32, we see calamity being brought on His people because of their unfaithfulness to serving God as their God. Jeremiah announces the judgement and restoration as we see from the text below, but we should know and understand from Lamentations 3 the answer to the question “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?”
36 “You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be handed over to the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord,the God of Israel, says: 37 I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. 38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
42 “This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. 43 Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without men or animals, for it has been handed over to the Babylonians.’ 44 Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.”
In our memory verse for the past two weeks, we learned from Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.’” God can do whatever He wants to do with what He created. He does all to bring glory to Himself. When we trust in Christ, we are assured that all of God’s actions are designed to draw us closer to Himself. Pray for singleness of heart and action, so that you will always fear God for your own good and the good of your children after you.
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