June 6, 2024
Adrian Rogers
Scripture Passage: Job 9
Many of us wonder why bad things happen to good people. But the real question is: How can good things happen to bad people?
Sin cannot be explained away by weakness or illness; man is a sinner by birth and by practice. We are too sinful to lift ourselves up to God, and He is too holy to lower Himself down to be only a man.
The only way a holy God and sinful men can come together is through Jesus, the God-man, our Mediator.
Job 9:2 says, “Truly I know it is so, but how can a man be righteous before God?”
After experiencing disaster and loss, Job’s three friends came to him, asking the right questions, but giving the wrong answers.
The first man, Eliphaz, spoke of a seducing spirit that appeared to him in a dream and gave him a satanic revelation to pass onto Job. (See Job 4:12-17.) Like Eliphaz’s experience, New Ageism, cults, and false doctrine run rampant today, spreading deceit. If we are neutral, we open ourselves up to demonism.
The second friend, Bildad, spoke of humanism and sophisticated reason. (See Job 8:10.) He suggested that for Job to understand what he was going through, he needed to study the ancient wisdom and philosophers of the ages. Nowadays, those like Bildad point to the scientists and evolutionists for answers. These empty ideas are not only wrong but also poisonous.
Job’s final friend, Zophar, suggested that the answer is legalism. (See Job 11.) Like Zophar, a lot of religious people will turn to sterile ritualism and self-reformation to try to be right with God.
But Job recognized his real need for a mediator. He saw his need for Jesus before he even knew his name.
1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time…”
Jesus was a qualified mediator: being both God and Man.
Adrian Rogers says, “As much a man as if not God at all… as much God as if not a man at all. Not half-God and half-man, but all God and all man, never another like Him, the God-man.”
Have you accepted Jesus, the God-man, our mediator? Do you see your need for Him, and seek Him first in times of need?
