Job’s perception of God contrasted sharply with that of his friends. In spite of his friends’ accusations and his wife’s bad advice, Job made his decision to trust God because he understood the character of God better than those who were closest to him. He understood that God possessed almighty power, but he also knew God to be compassionate and merciful. Like Christ, Job was misunderstood by his friends. And Job 30 is a beautiful typology of Christ who was misunderstood by His friends.

Like Job, Jeremiah was also misunderstood by his friends. Jeremiah lived in the time just before Babylon captured Jerusalem and destroyed it and many of the literal events of that time are symbolic of the spiritual realities of our day. Did you know the Three Angels’ Messages are woven into his testimony? This typology should also teach us that what we are preaching in the world today is the final message, the same that went out just before Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians.

How was Jeremiah, the message bearer, treated by his own people? They put him in the stocks, spit in his face, put him into a pit full of muck.

What is your conception of God? We must defend the character of God, but we also must warn the world and people of God that He is a God of justice too. Yet, in spite of what we may suffer from supposed friends, we must make the same choice that Job made: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). 

65 minutes