Brethren, this is the conclusion, the climax, of this long and detailed story. Now Job can see God. From the context, properly seeing God involves getting the self out of the way! As long as the self was in his line of vision, Job judged God by his own perspective. We see what we want to see. We see what we are educated to see. So Job saw his own wisdom, his own works, before he could see God in His greatness. This is because the carnal mind is trained to do so.
Brethren, it takes determination - it takes discipline in study and in prayer and meditation - to break oneself of that natural mode of thinking. And, even when we do succeed, we have to understand that our vision of God still has to be constantly replenished - day by day, Paul said - and upgraded, exercised, as it were, in the truth.
This is particularly interesting in light of Job. Job was a man who thought he knew God well, but there was still much that he did not know. During his sufferings, he threw an awful lot of direct challenges at God in an effort either to justify himself or to understand why he was going through this thing.
Did you know that God never directly answered any of Job's challenges? Instead, what God did was, beginning in about chapter 38, He indirectly led Job to see his own insignificance. Do you know that Job never repented of sin? That is because that was not the issue. The issue was that, despite Job's knowledge of God, he did not really see God as all powerful! That is, that God alone puts down evil and brings to pass all of His holy will.
You can tell the real issue in the book of Job by what God says beginning in chapter 38. God made two speeches there. It was not Job's self-righteousness - that was there - but Job's problem was that he questioned God's justice in the governance of His creation.
When Job opened his mouth to speak here in chapter 42, it was to tell God that he got the point. The point is that God's purpose is all that counts! And since He is God, He can bring it to pass. That God has the right, the will, and the loving nature to do anything He pleases to anybody, at any time - and good will come from it.
Do you believe that? Let me caution you. A man as spiritually mature as Job did not . . . until the end of the book.
