Job 1:18 – While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:

Job 1:19 – And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Hey all, new blog today, and a blog on some characters in the book of Job that don’t get much attention. They’re just a footnote in this story, and so often in Bible they’re just stories that we skip past, perhaps even our whole life, and never stop and think or realize what was going on. This blog deals with Job’s sons, he had seven sons we are told, and we just start the book and then they’re dead… and that’s that.

We read at the start of Job that Job was an upright and just man who feared God and eschewed evil. Eschew means to flee from, to shun, to avoid… Job was a faithful, righteous man. He did right, yet he was about to go through a huge trial of his faith, and his sons would play a role in that. Evidently Lot’s son’s weren’t that great themselves though. Because we read that they were party animals, they busied themselves with feasting and having fun and living it up, because their father Job was a rich and prosperous and great man in the land. That put them in an advantageous position to enjoy the spoils of life. It’s not wrong to be rich, it’s not wrong to be prosperous, it’s not wrong to do business well and make money, in fact that is a necessary part of life to earn money and provide for your family and have what you need to live… neither is there anything wrong with enjoying what God has given you and enjoying life… but this wasn’t that. This was Job’s sons “god”, their god was their own belly, it was all about their flesh, about pleasing their flesh, about serving their flesh, about following their own carnal desires.

Job would faithfully offer up sacrifices upon behalf of his sons. They would feast and party and have fun, and he would intercede before God for them… in case they had sinned and cursed God in their hearts, he would cover their sin before God with sacrifice and prayer. What Job did was right, but clearly instead of getting involved, he stood off to the side and took the role of a passive Christian. He didn’t really know the state of his son’s hearts, where they were before God, but he suspected that they were all heading and in fact already gone down the wrong path. Job was standing in the gap, Jesus is the ultimate example of standing in the gap… because there is a great gap between us and God, and Jesus stands between us and God, having died for ours sins and forgiven them, having mended that which was thoroughly broken in the garden of Eden. Job was doing what his sons should have been doing themselves… but while their father faithfully lived and they profited from it selfishly, they had no interest in the things of God, or sacrifice, or prayer, or sanctification.

One thing that’s so striking from Job’s sons in the story is how they are so peripheral to this great event in Job’s life. For an unsaved person, they are just a footnote in history, and barely that, they never realize the purpose that God had for them. Imagine if the only record of you was that you enjoyed to feast a lot and revel and have fun. In Revelation, the Bible says we were created for Jesus Christ… so unless you ever get right with Jesus Christ and believe on him and obey him, all you will mark in this life is the time before you die. There will be no remembrance, all human glories and achievements and fleeting lusts and pleasures vanish instantly, and nothing remains, because only a life founded upon the rock of Jesus Christ will last in the context of eternity. In fact, God would just use these sons as part of trying Job’s faith and purifying Job’s life. It’s no consolation for his sons who died, they didn’t need to waste their lives, but they did, and in fact the only use they had in this life was part of another man’s being tried and brought through the other end better for it.

Satan was after Job’s hide, he wanted Job. Job was this faithful man, and that’s who Satan attacks, because in so doing he attacks their purpose, their usefulness for God, their impact upon the lives of others. Even if he can’t take your salvation, he will try and rip your life apart, he wants your worship, your future, your blessing, your testimony. He just wanted to prove to God that the only reason Job served God was for what God did for him… he told God that if God took his hedge away and evil befell him that Job’s relationship to God would fall away. God used Satan in this book to try Job, and what a trial it was. God gave Satan permission to attack Job, but didn’t give him the power to take his life. But the sons weren’t protected by God like Job was, and part of Satan’s attack on Job was the death of Job’s seven sons… all at once, all so sudden, all so final.

So there came a day while the sons were partying, feasting, revelling up in their wealth, prosperity and fortune… that a big east wind came and destroyed the house they were partying in. The corners fell down and the house fell on them. These guys weren’t worshipping God, they weren’t out spreading the gospel, they weren’t serving God… all they were doing was serving themselves. As much as Job tried protecting them from afar, salvation is each of our own personal responsibility. These guys, even with such a father, well, their God was not Job’s God, they were not in the same kingdom as their father Job. If they were serving Satan, we see how much Satan loves his own, Satan doesn’t care for human souls at all, he only wants them as much as he can use them. Job and his sons were biologically related, but spiritually they were not even nearly in the same postcode. The foundation of the lives wasn’t great… the walls caved in and the house collapsed. And that is what the house of an unbeliever’s life and soul will endure should he or she never repent and get saved. When the wind came, this house went over. A house built upon pleasure, a house built upon godless living… it doesn’t have a strong foundation, or any foundation at all.

You’ve got to take care what house you’ve got and what you’re building for yourself here on earth. These sons built their house upon pleasure and a good time… and it fell flat, and in fact fell on them. Your own life will be heaped upon your own head, you will be judged according to how you lived, what you did… what type of life you built here on earth. The Bible says that salvation can be likened to walls, and housing yourself with true salvation, well those walls will not cave in when the winds and storms of life roll in. Without salvation, you do not have actual walls. You may have fake walls, you may have got it all made at the moment, but it’s deceiving you, because just as these sons felt invulnerable, there came a day it was all over. And it was quick, sudden, and final. Without true salvation your house is a house, a life, a future, a destiny, an existence which has no stability, no foundation, it will not last… it isn’t a house built upon salvation, upon reading and obeying God’s word. A house built upon serving yourself, doing things your way, living ungodly, it won’t last. Without salvation you have no walls. Instead you’re more like Jerusalem at the start of Nehemiah… the walls are rubble, the gates burnt with fire. Nehemiah’s mission was to rebuild the walls, and just like Nehemiah, it’s time to start putting walls up again. Strong walls based upon reading and obeying God’s word, strong walls of faith, hope, love, truth. Its about the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s real, he’s a person, he’s God in the flesh, he’s the only way you know God or can hear from God.

It’s scary how similar this story is to the one Jesus told in Matthew 7:24-27. A man who built his house upon the sand versus a man who built his house upon the rock. Hearing and obeying Jesus is building your house upon the rock, but failing to do so is building your house upon the sand. For both men and their houses, the winds, the rain, the storms came, but only one house was left standing at the end of it. Job’s sons, well, the wind came, and it was all over. To found your house upon the rock, you practically do that by reading his word, hearing it, and then obeying it. It’s useless to you unless it translates to action based upon what you read and hear. Only then will your house will be built upon the rock, it won’t cave when the winds of life blow through.

Job wondered if his sons had sinned and cursed God in their hearts, but he didn’t know. His sons were his business but instead he was afar off. He was doing the right thing, but could’ve he intervened more? Eli had two sons who were wicked, and because he didn’t intervene and make a difference, rather than weakly protesting, he lost everything, his sons, his future, his heritage, his blessing, his life. Job was protected by a hedge God had made around him, but his sons did not have that same hedge. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes… that… whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. You get outside of God’s protection, out of the security and safety and light of truth, outside of obeying him and doing right before the Lord with fear… well a serpent might just get you! The serpent was very active, Job and his sons never knew what was going on in the spiritual sphere, but Job and his family had more than attracted the devil’s attention, and he was on their case. While his sons partied their life away, much like Belshazzar did… even while unbeknown to him the impregnable city whose walls he had placed his faith in… were already breached. Your house, your walls, your life, your soul… is only as safe, and secure, and well founded, and well grounded… as your relationship to Jesus Christ goes, if in fact there is even one. A relationship to God through Jesus Christ (the ONLY way to have a relationship and fellowship with God) starts with repentance of sin… it will not begin otherwise. Job’s sons had the dad, had the opportunity, no doubt they knew truth, yet they missed it anyway by choice. Their lives would have no direction or fulfillment or purpose of their own, instead their lives would be used just to test another man’s life while they themselves would perish. The Bible could’ve said he had sons that were faithful, honest, good stewards of what they had been blessed with… but instead all they wanted to do was have a good time. Sounds like today’s generation, it’s the good time generation, all we worry about is having a good time. It’s so important to remember that while you are having your good time, your life is actually on God’s time. And their time finally was up. Who ever noticed them? Who noticed Job’s sons?

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