Job 23:1-27:23, 2 Corinthians 1:12-2:11, Psalm 41:1-13, Proverbs 22:5-6
Today is the 27th day of August, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian, it is great to be here with you today, man we are, we’re closing in, we’re closing in on another month. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves but once in a while, I look at the calendar and see the date and wow, August just began, it feels like. And, here we are. And so, let’s just be here now and take the next step forward together. That’s gonna lead us back into the book of Job and today we’ll read chapters 23 through 27.
Commentary:
Alright, so as we continue our journey through Job and the conversation, which is what most of the book of Job is, a conversation between Job and his friends, they’re trying to set him right, he’s trying to set them right. Actually, he’s not really trying to set them right, he’s just trying to hold onto his integrity he’s trying to say, “you’re trying to correct me in ways that aren’t correcting me because I haven’t done what you’ve claimed I’ve done even though you have no grid for this, even though you think I must be, I must be worthy of this judgment. I must’ve done something. I must actually be a secret center. I must have evil in my heart somewhere. I don’t.” And that’s what Job is holding onto and so, it’s gets into a completely existential debate because Job is, you know, talking about things that he has observed about God and his comings and his goings, things that he has seen over time. And then his friends try to explain, why God does the things that he does. And so, it turns into this argument or this continued conversation about what God does and does not do and that also sounds quite familiar. For Job though, all these explanations about why God does what God does and doesn’t do what God doesn’t do. They didn’t answer Job’s ultimate questions. Like he’s still in that kind of zone where he’s like I know all the things that you’re saying, I’ve said all the things that you’re saying to other people. I know all this. This is a different situation. I don’t need your human wisdom. I’m telling you the things that I have seen about God and you’re trying to explain why. I need God, like I need God, not you. I need God to tell me what is going on and then Job says if, and I quote “if only I knew where to find God. I would go to his court. I would lay out my case and present my arguments and then I would listen to his reply and understand what he says to me.” So, Job and his friends are in the back and forth because generally, even in response to that they’re kinda saying, like only righteous people could ever hope to find God and so there’s a reason you’re not able to find Him. Job’s like this is not right. And I quote Job again “as long as I live, while I have breath from God, my lips will speak no evil, and my tongue will speak no lies. I will never concede that you are right, I will defend my integrity until I die. I will maintain my innocence without wavering. My conscience is clear for as long as I live.” Right, so there it is. They’ve tried everything to convince Job that in some ways he deserves whatever it is that he’s getting and Job is saying not so, that’s not true and you cannot change my mind. I am innocent before God and so it’s an impasse. I mean, they can keep going in circles, but it’s an impasse. Job wants to find God, even if finding God kills him. He will hope in God, even if that is a hopeless pursuit and there it kind of is, there’s where the mirror sort of goes up for us. Why are we charging hard after God? So, He can make life easier? So, He’ll fix something? So that a struggle will go away? So that something that makes us uncertain will make us certain? So that He’ll give us wisdom so we can make a bunch of money? I mean, we can, the things we have asked God for over a lifetime, it’s a myriad of things and all kinds of categories and we have to ask ourselves so why, when I have pursued the hardest after God was it because I needed Him to do something for me? What if he doesn’t do it? What if you don’t get the answer? What if the struggle doesn’t go away? And I’m not trying to say that’s what you can expect. Our Father is a loving Father, but He knows everything, a lot more than we know. And there’s a lot more going on than we know. And so, we have to ask ourselves, am I in hot pursuit of a relationship with God because of the benefits that brings me? Because we’re seeing something a little deeper in Job because Job is basically saying I will pursue God, even if that kills me, even if He kills me when I find Him. He is my only hope, that is the only place I will find my hope and if that’s hopeless, so be it. I will still hope in God, which is very different than trying to tow a specific line so that God feels obligated to be fair and give us what we want. So, we have an invitation here as we move into the weekend to just ponder, why are we doing this? And if it doesn’t work out the way that we want it to work out, will we be able to say, blessed be the name of the Lord, I will pursue God, even if that is the end of me, there is no other hope. Or are we more like children and we didn’t get what we want and so we go into the bedroom and shut the door and throw a fit, scream into the pillow. It's…it’s probably, the truth of the matter is probably we’re…we’re both, we’re both of those things, it just depends. And that just shows us how erratic we can be and so just to consider why we are pursuing God is helpful to bring up some things in us that probably need to be dealt with.
Prayer:
And so, Holy Spirit, we invite You into that, bring those things to the surface. Shine the light of truth into our hearts, even the dark recesses and the corners, shine the light of truth, so that we may see what is true and what is really going on within us so, that we might be transformed. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
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And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hey guys it’s Sparky. Praying for all of ya’ll. I wanted to give some encouragement to Jerry from Duluth with your daughter that’s, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sorry to know where you’re at right now but just to give you, give you a little hope. Five years ago, I lived in a camp trailer that my grandmother owned. And I was strung out, I had two kids, I’d been married twice, been to rehab to get off meth. It was a road and there was a point were screaming and hollering and being drunk and yelling at parents and breaking hearts and I was just so clouded and I want you to know that there’s hope, there’s hope for the pregnancy. I hope everything works out in the way that it’s supposed to and it will. And, I just want to let you know, all I have to say is but God. My wife that I met, met me when I was…I was a pretty rough fella and we started going to church. And she…she, she was an epic part of my life and she brought God into my life, it’s doable. I want to know that. And there’s roads that we all go down and I hear the trouble and the…on everybody’s heart and I’m praying for all of you guys but be encouraged. God does amazing things. And if you would’ve told me I would be working on a Master’s degree right now I would have laughed at you. So, thank you and I love you guys. Be blessed and God loves you too.
Dear loving family, this is GG from Gville. I want you all to know that you are my true friends. You guys are exactly like those friends of the paraplegic man who, do you remember in the gospels how he was brought down through the ceiling in order to be healed by God and couldn’t had gotten there on his own without those people coming alongside him to bring him down. And that’s what you guys did for me without knowing it I was stuck in fear and in self-pity. And there came a moment that I had this realization and I heard myself thinking man some kind of God, puts me through Lime disease, then seizures, then my dad dies and now I’m pregnant and I feel terrible. And I just realized immediately wait, no, those are all things that God didn’t put me through those are the things that He got me through. He is a good Father and He healed me of Lime, he healed me of seizures, He comforted me in the grief of my dad dying and he has blessed me with a child. And as I began to rejoice not in one day but over a course of days those physical systems began to disappear. When I think about the Lord how He saved me, how He raised me, how He filled me with the Holy Ghost, how He healed me to the uttermost, when I think about the Lord, how He picked me up and turned me around, how He set my feet on solid ground and makes me want to shout Lord, You’re worthy of all the glory, all the honor and all the praise. Amen. I love you.
Hey this message is for Trent from Rockwell, Tennessee, this is Mandy from Georgia. I just heard your encouragement and I just wanted to say that I, I totally understand. I was raised in an abusive situation also and the things that we grow through, people that have never been there can’t even fathom and even I, sometimes think about some of the stuff that happened when I was a kid and just can’t believe that it really happened but I’m with you. I know that, that God got us through it and I know that as crazy as it seems for these things to happen that you know, for me that stuff prepared me for things to come and it gave me and understanding, I guess, for what my three children that we adopted, had been through as well. It’s weird how things work, isn’t it? I just wanted to say that I totally get it, I understand and it just, thank you for calling.
Hello DAB family it is the 24th of August at 6:26 PM this is Sarah from London. I hope everyone is having a blessed week, just know that I am praying for each and every single one of you as your requests come in. But today I’m just calling to pray for Afghanistan because of just everything happening in that nation. I don’t watch the news. I try to limit the amount of times I do actually watch the news because I do find a lot of things that go on around the world quite distressing and it is to the point that I do get quite, it does affect my mood and my spirit. But it’s just so sad with what’s happening there with all the innocent families of children and just everyone that is just there that has been affected by what is happening. And just prayers for that nation. Prayers for Afghanistan because there’s nothing that God cannot do, just praying for God’s hand upon that nation, there’s nothing too big for our God. May His will be done for every single one in that country for people to know that there is only one true God our Abba Father. May His protection be upon all those suffering in Afghanistan. In Jesus name. And may all the prayer warriors on the Daily Audio Bible family continue to pray for that nation. There’s s nothing too big for our God. In Jesus name. I love you all, have a blessed rest.
Good morning DAB family, this is Dana and I’m calling in from South Carolina. This is my first time calling in; I have been listening for about seven, eight years and thank you Brian for all that you do. I was listening this morning to the prayer requests and the lady that called in about the chronic pain, the RIC that she’s suffering with, I’m praying for you that God completely heal you and deliver you and I pray that He would begin to place in you, the burden to pray for others to be healed, be it physical or emotional and as you are praying for others, God would begin to relieve the pain that you’re going through. I also want to pray for the lady that called in that lost her son and that she says there’s people that are around her feeling like that she needs to be getting past this at this point. I can’t imagine what that would be like to lose your child at any age. But I pray that God would surround you with people that would be a little more sympathetic to what you’re dealing with and going through and I pray that God would just give you peace and hope and that you completely put your trust in Him and I pray that He would wrap his arms of love around you and again just surround you with people that are there for you to support you and give you a shoulder to cry on when you need it. I thank You Lord for all that you do. I thank You for Your blessings. I thank You for Your healing touch, physically.