DAY 24 Read Job 32 through 35.
Today's reading introduces a fifth speaker, a younger friend who apparently had listened silently to the arguments of the older men awaiting a chance to express his opinions.
Memory gem: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23, 24).
Thought for today:
At last, after a lengthy observation of the discussion between these men, a fourth friend, a young man named Elihu, arose and expressed his opinion to Job. He showed Job that, instead of being a punishment for some special sin, afflictions are sometimes sent as a means of strengthening and purifying the children of God. They are not the expression of an angry God, but the chastening of a loving Father.
So we see that Elihu was a man whom God could use to help Job and to make things clear in the minds of his three friends. Job accepted that view. And then the Lord Himself, speaking from the whirlwind, reproved Job for his murmurings and showed him that mortal man knows far too little to try to understand the mysteries of God's rule.
David Livingstone, the great explorer and missionary, had a secret sorrow. His son, Robert, had never followed the right path, and he was unable to reach him. The lad went to Boston, joined the Union Army in the Civil War, and at the age of nineteen died in battle on the field of Gettysburg. Before his father knew of his death, he wrote to a friend about the great sorrow of heart caused by this son. He spoke of this sorrow as the "secret ballast" which is often applied by God's hand when outsiders think we are sailing gloriously with the wind. God holds us steady by this secret ballast of sorrow.
Today's reading introduces a fifth speaker, a younger friend who apparently had listened silently to the arguments of the older men awaiting a chance to express his opinions.
Memory gem: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23, 24).
Thought for today:
At last, after a lengthy observation of the discussion between these men, a fourth friend, a young man named Elihu, arose and expressed his opinion to Job. He showed Job that, instead of being a punishment for some special sin, afflictions are sometimes sent as a means of strengthening and purifying the children of God. They are not the expression of an angry God, but the chastening of a loving Father.
So we see that Elihu was a man whom God could use to help Job and to make things clear in the minds of his three friends. Job accepted that view. And then the Lord Himself, speaking from the whirlwind, reproved Job for his murmurings and showed him that mortal man knows far too little to try to understand the mysteries of God's rule.
David Livingstone, the great explorer and missionary, had a secret sorrow. His son, Robert, had never followed the right path, and he was unable to reach him. The lad went to Boston, joined the Union Army in the Civil War, and at the age of nineteen died in battle on the field of Gettysburg. Before his father knew of his death, he wrote to a friend about the great sorrow of heart caused by this son. He spoke of this sorrow as the "secret ballast" which is often applied by God's hand when outsiders think we are sailing gloriously with the wind. God holds us steady by this secret ballast of sorrow.
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