Notes on Job 14-16

To My Daughters...

I love the way Chapter 14 begins...

"Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble

Nice! Life is hard and then you die!  Job goes on from that opener to remind us that  in addition to life being hard and full of trouble, life is also short and we are depraved from the very beginning.  Since this is the case Job asks God to just leave him alone and let him live the rest of his days in peace.  Here is the thing though...no matter how unpleasant your world looks right now God's offer of salvation is there...an eternity in His presence.  Life is short and full of trouble...without accepting God's offer of salvation, eternity could be worse!  The application for us then is that we need to be clothed in his righteousness.  Isaiah 61:10 says this:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Heaven is our hope...heaven takes the "bite" out of living in this fallen world.

Verses 12-14 of Job say this.

So man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, They will not awake Nor be roused from their sleep.  "Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, Till my change comes.


Did you get what Job asked us about in that last verse...If a man dies, shall he live again?  Is there life after death?  This is the burning question that lies deep in the heart of each and every one of us.  This question was not answered for fully for Job, but it is answered for us in Christ.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?--John 11:25-26

When death occurred for a believer prior to Christ he did not go directly to heaven because his sin was not yet paid for.  He would go to the abode of the dead that was divided into two compartments...Paradise and Hades.  Before Jesus ascended into Heaven after his death on the cross, Paul writes that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth where he led captivity captive...that is He took those in Paradise to Heaven.

Remember me, Job says...Jesus did through His finished work on the cross.

Our hope is sure and certain as a believer...heaven awaits.  Jesus writes this to comfort his disciples after speaking to them of his death in John 14.

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.


Fix your eyes and your hope on what matters...eternity...anything else is just short sighted.

Listen to Job in the last several verses of Chapter 14.  Hear his despair.  But for now Lord you are destroying my hope as water wears away stone, as torrents wash away the soil.  You prevail and man passes on.  You change our countenance. (we grow old and wrinkly) and then you send us away.  Sigh!  Life is dark apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  How tragic for those who live this life without its hope.

Job's friends are speaking again in Chapter 15.  They are still trying to get Job to admit that he is a great sinner.  Now we know he is not because the first chapter tells us that these trials are occurring not because Job has sinned but because of his righteousness.  

Here comes Eliphaz, the great comforter (sarcasm) telling Job that he is a bag of wind...full of hot air.  A good opening Eliphaz!  It is not me who condemns you Job.  It is your own lips that testify against you.  Now as I read Eliphaz's words here in Chapter 15, I listened for what his heart might be saying.  I heard fear!  Eliphaz is afraid Job is right.  And if Job is right, Eliphaz could be next on the "Job road of suffering".  Eliphaz does not want to believe that bad things do happen to good people so he is defending his position that the wicked do not prosper.

I loved what Jon Courson says here...He points out that much of what Eliphaz says is true.  Yes, man is born in iniquity and there is none righteous but then compares Eliphaz's words and heart with David's in Psalm 8 who says things similar to what Eliphaz is saying here in chapter 15.

What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?  For You have made him a little lower than the angels,  And You have crowned him with glory and honor.  You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;  You have put all things under his feet,  All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air,  And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth! --Psalm 8:4-9

The tone of David and the tone of Eliphaz are so very different. David understands God's love for us.  He understands His grace and His mercy toward us.  Eliphaz interpretation and words are missing love.  Jon Courson thinks that the overarching lesson the Lord has for us in Job's miserable counselors is that although they might have a point, they do not have hearts. I have to agree with Jon Courson.  Eliphaz is short on heart.  Some of his assessments were also quite cruel to Job.  Verse 33 really stands out on the cruelty scale.

He will shake off his unripe grape like a vine, And cast off his blossom like an olive tree.

Eliphaz is referring here to the 10 children Job is grieving.  Eliphaz leaves a legacy of a lack of love for all those who read this book.  Through his bad example I am hoping we can see our own lack of compassion for the people God has placed in our lives and speak words of faith to a hurting world rather than words of fear.

Chapter 16 is thus far my favorite chapter in Job because in it we see Job as a type of Christ.  Job responds to his faithless companions by calling the trio a bunch of miserable comforters who speak empty words and have only increased his suffering.  Job tells them that if their positions were reversed, he would strengthen them with his mouth and comfort them with his lips. 

Now the next few verses are amazingly similar to messianic passages in Psalm 22 and Lamentations 3:30.  Read them for yourselves:

He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens His gaze on me. They gape at me with their mouth, They strike me reproachfully on the cheek, They gather together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly, And turned me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target, His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.  "I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, And laid my head in the dust.  My face is flushed from weeping, And on my eyelids is the shadow of death; Although no violence is in my hands, And my prayer is pure.

Job becomes a type of Christ here.  These descriptions that we read all point to Jesus.  They are prophetic and Messianic. What was done to Job was done to God's Son.  If these things Job was facing in his life were a sign of sin, then why did Jesus go through these very things.  What a wonderful God we have!  These verses remind us that what suffering God is allowing in our lives is for His glory...just as Christ's sufferings brought glory to God  The cross was the darkest hour in human history, but oh, what good came from it!  It is now the brightest beacon of hope for mankind and the brightest light of God's glory.

Job did not know it, but he was being conformed into the image of God's Son.  God was trusting Job with the fellowship of his sufferings.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, --Philippians 3:10

We get to know Jesus when we suffer in ways that He suffered.  We form a common bond so to speak...The rejection we feel, the grief we suffer, the persecution we face all conform us into His likeness and draw us nigh unto Him.  As we suffer in one degree or another as Jesus did, we begin to willingly accept it because it is in the dark hours that we truly come to know Him because we understand a bit more about what He Himself suffered for us.

Job goes on to do just what Jesus did on the cross...He committed his soul into His hands.  He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously...it did not matter what man said about Him...God had his record on high.

Verse 29 is beautiful...

My friends scorn me; My eyes pour out tears to God.

Job may not be able to count on his friends but he can count on God and pour out both his tears and his heart to Him.  Corrie Ten Boom says that we will never know the Lord until the Lord is all we have.  This is so true.  When the proverbial rug is pulled out and we can no longer depend on the people or things that we are accustomed to turning to in times of trouble, we begin to learn to lean and depend on God.  It is then we begin to understand that He is the Becoming One...the One who becomes whatever we might need.


Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, As a man pleads for his neighbor! For when a few years are finished, I shall go the way of no return.

We have this today...Jesus is our Advocate with the Father.

Love
Mom

Christophobia: The Judgment

Christophobia: The Judgment: And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who ...