To My Girls,
Picking up at the end of Chapter 10, verse 15...Job is full of confusion. God, he says, you see my plight and my affliction. I am terrified. You hunt me down like a lion and then show your power by crushing me with your weight. God! Don't You see my great affliction and misery. Don't you care, God!?? No matter what I do..whether I am righteous or whether I am wicked...I am still in misery. Job then pleads with God to leave him alone and give him some rest so that he might find some comfort before he dies.
Listen to Zophar at the beginning of Chapter 11!! What a miserable comforter this guy is! Job know that God is exacting from you less than your iniquity deserves.
Now of course there is some truth there...the bible does say that the wages of sin is death but Zophar is not listening to Job's heart here. One of my pastors has wisely said that when someone criticizes you or speaks to you unkindly, the best way to handle it is to look for the truth in what they say and throw the rest out. This is very good advice. Oh that we would listen more and close our mouths even more! That we would pray for mercy both for ourselves and for others. I love what Chuck Smith says about this verse:
"I think only a fool would come to God and say Lord, give me what I deserve." Chuck is so right...when I come before the Lord I pray mercy...mercy and more mercy, please!
Now before Zophar had the arrogance to tell suffering Job that God was exacting less from him than what he really deserved, he reminds Job of what he (JOB) had said:
For you have said, 'My doctrine is pure, And I am clean in your eyes.' But oh, that God would speak, And open His lips against you,
Aaah..but God himself had already spoken his thoughts about Job in chapter 1.
Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?"
Now neither Job nor Zophar were privy to this...but we, as the reader, know what God thinks of Job...and yet we find him suffering and smitten by God.
Chapter 12 finds Job answering and responding to his three "comforters". Now verse 2 of chapter 12 is my favorite verse in the book of Job with a verse in chapter 13 running a very close second. Here is what Job 12:2 says:
No doubt you are the people, And wisdom will die with you!
Ha...when you die wisdom will too! Can you hear the sarcasm in his voice. This is one of the reasons I love Job. He is godly and sarcastic! A winning combination! I have wisdom too, Job says. In fact what you guys are saying about God's justice and sovereignty are common knowledge. In addition, Job has gone through what they have not. He is going to shine a lamp on their ease and make them uncomfortable.
Look around men...the wicked do seem to prosper. Asks the beasts...even they get it! The strongest wins. And what's more, Job goes on to say, God controls it all. (vs 12-25).
Chapter 13 finds Job very very tired of his earthly companions and desiring to speak to His God and reason with Him. In fact Job tells his earthly counselors that the wisest thing they could do would be to shut their mouths. My second favorite verse in Job is below.
"Behold, my eye has seen all this, My ear has heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. But I would speak to the Almighty, And I desire to reason with God. But you forgers of lies, You are all worthless physicians. Oh, that you would be silent, And it would be your wisdom! --Job 13:1-5
Oh, that you would be silent, and it would be your wisdom. Don't you love that line! God tells us in Isaiah to come, let us reason together. And in James He tells us that if we lack wisdom to ask. Take counsel from God...spend time with Him in a trial..wait on Him. That is where your true help will come from.
Job goes on to say that in their attempt to defend God they are actually offending Him and talking deceitfully.
Their explanations of God's actions were not true. He then asks them if they are prepared to have God search their own hearts? Job tells them that even though he does not understand what he is going through or why he is going through it, he is going to trust him. Here is the famous line from the book of Job.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
I love that...Job is going to trust God no matter what He is doing and no matter what the outcome. Job's body here is a mass of open sores, his family has been taken from him and his wife has told him to curse God and die. AND YET...Job cries out in faith. What an encouragement!!! Okay...not so good that Job still wants to defend his ways before God and wants God to tell him the reason he is suffering...not exactly trusting God but still...
Job asks God for two things in verses 20 and 21...that He would not withdraw His hand from Him and that the dread of Him would not make him afraid. He is basically saying like Peter said...Lord to whom would I go...you have the words to eternal life. For me thinking about being without the Lord and His word is like falling into a very dark endless hole from which I would never emerge. Truly, the thought is terrifying. Verse 22 and 23 find him asking God once again to make him to know his transgression and his sin. What did I do Lord to merit this kind of misery?? Tell me!
Job wants to move on with his life but can't because God has his feet in the stocks...He is being held prisoner by his punishment and eaten away daily with despair.
Thus ends my notes on 10-13...
Love
Mom
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Summary of the Book of Job...
By Bill...
A friend and I are reading through the Bible chronologically and are now in the Book of Job. Here is a summary written by my husband for those who might be reading along with us and finding the book a bit difficult to comprehend.
Overall, Job illustrates two fundamental truths: no man is righteous and God is sovereign, and in the end, always compassionate and merciful.
Job, had an inaccurate understanding about who he was (a sinner), and who God is (all-powerful and utterly holy).
From our perspective, Job was a "good man", and it was because of his goodness that he became a target of Satan's long war against God. In effect, Satan, who currently has access to Heaven but one one day be cast down forever, challenged God regarding Job.
The challenge was this, paraphrasing: "Job only loves and worships you because you have blessed him with health, wealth and family. Take away these blessings and he will curse you."
Astonishingly, God gives Satan permission to test Job, but notice he can only do to Job what God allows during each testing.
First Job is bereft of wealth and family - even his wife advises him to "curse God and die!" But Job suffered all these things and remained steadfast - "The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Satan then dares God to take Job's health away and watch him lose faith. God allows this trial as well, but puts definite limits to the afflictions that Satan was powerless to go beyond.
To this physical torture, so tormenting Job wished to die, and cursed the day he was born, was added the self-righteous hypocritical "sympathies of his 4 "friends".
But notice throughout the entire ordeal, while crying out to God, and attempting to defend himself to his companions, Job neither took his own life, nor dishonored God.
In the end, after some 39 chapters of physical and emotional testing, God revealed himself to Job, obliterating all his false pictures of self-righteousness, and displaying His true, awe-inspiring Being.
Job rightfully repented in dust and ashes.
Then God turned His attention to Job's useless friends and informed them that only through Job's prayers on their behalf would they avoid His judgment.They thought they knew God and His purposes, yet were worse in their hearts than Job, to whom they directed their torturous self-righteous superiority.
In the end, God blessed Job with precisely twice the blessings He had bestowed at first.
Job is a book which purposely shatters any conception we have about our holiness in light of God's perfect and radiant holiness.
God claims and exercises jurisdiction and judgment over all creation. No created being, including Satan, can operate beyond His knowledge and will.
And no one is righteous except God:
Here is what God says about natural man:
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18, NKJV).
Job, had an inaccurate understanding about who he was (a sinner), and who God is (all-powerful and utterly holy).
From our perspective, Job was a "good man", and it was because of his goodness that he became a target of Satan's long war against God. In effect, Satan, who currently has access to Heaven but one one day be cast down forever, challenged God regarding Job.
The challenge was this, paraphrasing: "Job only loves and worships you because you have blessed him with health, wealth and family. Take away these blessings and he will curse you."
Astonishingly, God gives Satan permission to test Job, but notice he can only do to Job what God allows during each testing.
First Job is bereft of wealth and family - even his wife advises him to "curse God and die!" But Job suffered all these things and remained steadfast - "The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
Satan then dares God to take Job's health away and watch him lose faith. God allows this trial as well, but puts definite limits to the afflictions that Satan was powerless to go beyond.
To this physical torture, so tormenting Job wished to die, and cursed the day he was born, was added the self-righteous hypocritical "sympathies of his 4 "friends".
But notice throughout the entire ordeal, while crying out to God, and attempting to defend himself to his companions, Job neither took his own life, nor dishonored God.
In the end, after some 39 chapters of physical and emotional testing, God revealed himself to Job, obliterating all his false pictures of self-righteousness, and displaying His true, awe-inspiring Being.
Job rightfully repented in dust and ashes.
Then God turned His attention to Job's useless friends and informed them that only through Job's prayers on their behalf would they avoid His judgment.They thought they knew God and His purposes, yet were worse in their hearts than Job, to whom they directed their torturous self-righteous superiority.
In the end, God blessed Job with precisely twice the blessings He had bestowed at first.
Job is a book which purposely shatters any conception we have about our holiness in light of God's perfect and radiant holiness.
God claims and exercises jurisdiction and judgment over all creation. No created being, including Satan, can operate beyond His knowledge and will.
And no one is righteous except God:
Here is what God says about natural man:
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18, NKJV).
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