Notes: March 10, 2009 – Jeremiah 17

Sin engraved on your heart

  • v 1. How can you erase the evidence and effects of sin in your life?
  • v 1. Is the evidence of sin displayed in your religious activity also?
  • v 2. Children notice sin in their parents’ lives.
  • v 5-6. Depart from God and you won’t be able to see good around you.
  • v 7-8. Be environmentally friendly. Be a tree planted by the Lord. Psalm 1.
  • v 9. Do you doubt the sinful depravity of Man? You thus prove the deceitfulness of a sinful heart.
  • v 10. God alone knows our hearts.
  • v 13. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall not be ashamed.
  • v 14. When God heals, we shall be healed. When God saves, we shall be saved.
  • v 15. Some men mockingly call for the word of the Lord. They cannot understand it; much less will they act upon it.
  • v 19-27. Men who have forsaken God’s word may continue with religious activity; but they need someone who will faithfully stand outside their little charade and denounce it.

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Notes: Job 23-24

English Language Bible Study Guide for: January 17, 2008

After Eliphaz’s slanderous remarks, Job responds.

Job 23

2-9: Yes, I would like to speak to God; but I cannot find Him.

3: I wish I knew where He is.

4: I have a lot of things I’d say to Him.

5: I want to know what He has to say about all of this.

8: No matter where I look, God is not there.

Contrast this with the Psalmist’s comments.

Psalm 139:7  Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
11  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

10-12: Yet Job has confidence that these trials will not destroy his relationship with God.

I Corinthians 3:11  For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

13-14: No man has been God’s counselor; God does as He wills. Absolute freedom of will and absolute power belong to God alone.

15-17: When Job thinks about God, Job realizes that God is not a man and that God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts nor are God’s ways man’s ways.

 

Job 24

1: Why don’t men realize that we must all stand before God? Why do men persist in their sin even though they acknowledge that God sees everything we do and He knows our every thought?

2-17: Job’s catalog of the sins of man could be taken from today’s newspaper. Man’s inclination towards and practice of sin has only become greater with the intervening generations. Eliphaz’s accusations against Job should have been made against Mankind, with the conclusion that “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

  • 2: destroying the boundaries of personal property
  • 2: stealing portable goods
  • 3: oppressing orphans and widows
  • 4: ignoring the poor and needy
  • 5: looking for someone or something to conquer
  • 6: caring only for themselves
  • 7-8: withholding clothing and shelter from the cold and naked
  • 9-10: robbing the poor and orphans
  • 13: rejecting God’s ways
  • 14: murdering
  • 15: committing adultery
  • 21: mistreating those who cannot have children
  • 22: threatening the lives of others

12: Though the wounded cry out for justice, there seems to be no reckoning in this life.

18-20: But in the end, the wicked will be judged.

24: They may be exalted for a little while, but eventually, in God’s time, the wicked will be destroyed.

25: “And,” Job states emphatically, “if that isn’t the case, prove me wrong.”

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