Pastor’s Bible Reading Schedule:
Job 31-32
Saturday: Jeremiah 17-21
Sunday: Mark 11-12
A man was traveling on a lonely road in Japan when he was robbed and killed. Two supposed witnesses claimed that Ishimatsu Yoshid, an innocent bystander, committed the crime. One of them grabbed Yoshid and started beating him, yelling, “Confess.” “No,” Ishimatsu gasped, “I did not do it!” But the incriminating charge was made, and Yoshid was sent to prison for a crime he never committed. For the next twenty-three years, he suffered under great agony that he did not deserve.
Finally released from prison, Ishimatsu Yoshid began to hunt for his two accusers. He soon found one of the witnesses and forced him to admit that his testimony had been false. In fact, the man confided that he himself had committed the crime. Yoshida then hunted for the other witness. Upon finding him, and with all the pent-up emotion of twenty-three years of injustice, he grabbed the man and demanded, “Confess that you committed the murder.” The second man admitted he was also guilty. Ishimatsu Yoshida then reopened his case, procured a retrial, and secured an exoneration. Proven innocent, he was able to have his name cleared of any wrongdoing.
This is precisely the frustration that Job was feeling. He knew himself to be an innocent man, undeserving of the charges levied at him by his friends. With mounting frustration, Job pleaded his case before God. In Job 31, his final speech, Job searched his own life to prove that he was not guilty of the crimes assigned to him. He was not claiming perfection but innocence of the charges brought against him by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
Prayer Requests:
Personal
- Lord, please help me to be content to simply have a clear conscience with you.
- Lord, please help me to respond graciously and patiently with those who may make immature or false accusations.
- Lord, please help me to remember, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord.”
Political
- Representative Isaac Robinson – District 004 – Hamtramck
- Senator Jum Runestad – District 015 – White Lake Twp.
- Representative Terry Sabo – District 092 – Muskegon