Job 12:1-15:35, 1 Corinthians 15:29-58, Psalms 39:1-13, Proverbs 21:30-31
Today is the 24th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it’s wonderful as it is always to be here with you today around the Global Campfire as we continue our journey forward. Our journey has led us all the way from Genesis now in the Old Testament to Job and we are working our way through the conversations that Job and his friends are having. It’s pretty clear at this point that Job’s friends are trying to convince Job of one thing. Job is trying to convince his friends of another thing. And that thing being Job’s innocence. And, so, we will pick up the story and Job has a few things to say. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Job 12, 13, 14, and 15 today.
Commentary:
Okay so in the book of Job today if we…if we didn’t see where things were going, we are in full kind of debate and argument mode between Job and his friends. And let’s remember Job is suffering and is incredibly depressed and his friends have just been trying to comfort him while kinda moving him in a direction of acceptance where he can acknowledge that things don’t happen randomly and there’s gotta be a reason for this. And that is really the dichotomy because Job is claiming there is no reason for this. I didn’t deserve this. I am not unrighteous. I am blameless before God. And what would be most comforting to Job is for his friends to at least at minimum, acknowledge that he truly feels that way. He just wants them to be fair. But how can they be fair when it’s between Job and God? And this human being, Job, is claiming innocence against God like he’s being judged unfairly, and his friends can’t get their mind around how to comfort him in that. And, so, they can’t and so they come against it, and it gets pretty agitated in today’s reading because Job’s friends believe that God can’t have done what Job is claiming. Like He could’ve done it. He’s powerful enough to have done it, but not indiscriminately. If He did it, if God has anything to do with this it’s because Job deserved it. And, so, his friends are trying to lovingly while aggressively tell Job, you need to look inside a buddy. You need to look at your own heart. Your mouth is saying incriminating things against you. You need to repent. But Job is sticking to his conviction that he truly is righteous and blameless before God, and that anything that his friends could tell him to bring comfort or counsel or wisdom or insight he already knows those things. He needs to hear it from God himself. Here’s the irony between the sufferer, which is Job and the comforters which are his friends. They all fundamentally believe the same thing. They all believe that God is good, that God is just, that He’s righteous, that He is all-powerful, that He is holy. They all believe that. And yet Job sincerely believes that he has not been unholy, that he has not been unrighteous before God ,that he hasn’t done anything anywhere near the kind of judgment that he feels like he is experiencing and he fully believes God is doing this to him. And, so, a huge problem is sitting in the middle of all of this between Job’s friends and Job. If God is righteous, all-powerful, good and just, and Job is totally innocent and righteous before God, then why is Job suffering? And that is precisely what Job wants to know. That is what he is trying to find out. But the wisdom of his friends is exhausted, and he knows all the wisdom that they already told him. He wants an audience with God but where do you find such an audience? And if he did find God, how would he be able to say anything that didn’t make him guilty? Because how can you be…how can you be sinless? How can you be righteous and holy before God on your own? How could Job go and stand before God and claim his innocence and in the end not say things that incriminate him and make him realize that he’s guilty? Because he’s talking to God. And, so, Job makes a statement to his friends that is really riveting to me and it’s basically that Job is going to seek and attempt to find God. And he says, God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with Him. In another translation this is translated, though He may smite me still I will hope in Him. So, even though there’s some back and forth arguing going on before Job’s friends, Job is being solidified. It is God that He seeks. It is God that can rescue Him. There is no other. And maybe God really is not mad at Job. But Job needs to go find out and even if God kills him, he will still hope in God. That just…that blows my mind. That posture is so rare. This is basically Job saying, even if he pursues God and in all his pursuits, he reaches dead ends that are hopeless he will still hope in God. And that is what we should carry forward with us today, just that picture of Job’s posture. And as we consider the kinds of things that we might be going through, and truly we’re not likely to be going through the kinds of things that Job is going through, but that doesn’t mean the things that were going through our hard or painful or debilitating or sap our strength or take away our hope. And we may in fact be looking for answers that can’t find or looking for something that we can’t have. And when we think about those things we need to look into our heart. Like, what is coming up? What does that do when we think about those things? Does it bring anxiety, or frustration? All those things are human but doesn’t draw us near to God or does it thrust us away from God in mistrust? Job determined he couldn’t find answers unless God gave him answers and so he would seek God and even if you found God, and it was hopeless, and God killed him he would still hope in God. May we consider that deeply today.
Prayer:
Father, right at the outset here we hope in You and confess what we know. You are the only hope, that the wilderness seasons of our lives invariably teach us the same lesson, we are utterly dependent upon You and completely hopeless without You. It’s just often that when we suffer in some sort of way we feel like we’ve messed up, or You’ve messed up and these thoughts can begin to swirl, especially when understanding doesn’t make itself apparent. And, so, we start to subtly distance ourselves from You and subtly start blaming You because we don’t understand. And we confess that we don’t understand, and we confess that there is a lot more swirling around then we’re aware of. And when it feels like we need more than intervention is to be aware that You are with us. And, so, often in times when we’re struggling we’re not aware of that and we ask questions like, where did You go when we have simply ceased to be aware that You are near. So, Holy Spirit come. Grant us grace even in the difficult times to be aware that You would never leave us, that You are with us. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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