I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 16-21.

Job’s friends had come to him to comfort him, but they got caught up in trying to help him and forgot.  They got so caught up in convincing him that he had sinned that they did not stopped doing anything to comfort him.  Job further points out that strangers who know nothing about him mock him and make his life worse.  An important lesson for us, we should never judge those we do not know who are suffering.  We should not assume that those who are suffering deserve their suffering.  And we should seek to comfort those who are suffering even if we know they deserve the suffering, because we too have sinned and deserve to suffer.

Previously Job had cried out wishing that he had a mediator between himself and God.  In today’s passage he declares that he does have an advocate and mediator in heaven.  Also previously Job had asked the rhetorically  if someone who had died could live again, with the answer he would give being “No”.  However, today he declares that he knows the his Redeemer lives and will one day stand upon this earth.  Moreover, Job declares  that after he dies and his body decays he will, in his body, see God.  There is a great old hymn hymn which expresses what this means to those of us who believe in Christ:

Verse 1:
I know that my Redeemer liveth,
And on the earth again shall stand;
I know eternal life He giveth,
That grace and power are in His hand.
Chorus:
I know, I know that Jesus liveth,
And on the earth again shall stand;
I know, I know that life He giveth,
That grace and power are in His hand.
Verse 2:
I know His promise never faileth,
The word He speaks, it cannot die;
Tho’ cruel death my flesh assaileth,
Yet I shall see Him by and by.
[Chorus]
Verse 3:
I know my mansion He prepareth,
That where He is there I may be;
Oh, wondrous thought, for me He careth,
And He at last will come for me.
[Chorus]

And that is the comfort those who believe in Christ can take whenever they suffer: They can indeed know that their Redeemer lives and will again stand upon the earth.  I know that some day I will stand before God and any suffering or misery I experienced in life will disappear.