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Notes: Job 23-24

January 17, 2008 by

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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Notes: Job 3-4

January 8, 2008 by

Notes for January 8, 2008

We don’t know how much time passed between that horrible day when Job learned of the loss of his business and of his children, the day that Job was stricken with painful boils, and the day when he finally began to speak again.

Job 3

An outline:

1-10: And what does Job say when he does speak? He curses the day of his birth.

It’s important to remember that Job does not curse God. He merely expresses his thought that it would have been better if he had never been born.

11-19:  Job continues that if birth could not be prevented, then surely premature death would have been preferred to living with all of this trouble in his life.  Dead people, he suggests, are at rest.

20-26:  He doesn’t understand why this has happened to him, nor why he is still required/allowed to live.

Some comments:

a. Does not God appoint the time and place of our birth (Acts 17:26-27)? If we believe this, then cursing the day of our birth or wishing we were dead is but a veiled cursing of God. How is this unlike the believer who curses the rain but worships the God who sends rain?

Job’s grief was great.  But great grief should never be allowed to sway us from our confidence in God.

b. Suicide and suicidal thoughts, like all other sins, would steal God’s authority and abrogate it to ourselves, or they would deny God’s holy love and substitute our own interpretation of what is best for us.

c. Do the dead rest, do they have peace? Of course, the dead body is physically senseless; but is the flesh all there is to life? How often we desire to be relieved of physical pain but totally ignore the spiritual. This is the central point of the book of Job-that there is more going on than the physical events around us, that there is a great, unseen spiritual conflict that affects us in the physical world.

d. Satan had objected that God had hedged in Job and that Job was untouchable by trouble; now Job (verse 23) declares that God has hedged him in so that he was unable to be saved from trouble. Is either of them right?

e. Sometimes our worst fears are realized, and the suffering is compounded by our having dwelt so much on the possibility long before it ever occurred. The world says, "Think happy thoughts." God says (Philippians 4:8),  "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

f. Who has not lived as close to God as possible, diligently seeking to please Him, only to find that "yet trouble came"? Who has not had questions about why bad things have happened to us? TO US? We understand why bad things happen to other people; but why US? Try as we might, when the questions are about us the answers are more difficult to grasp and to accept.

Job 4

The friends take turns trying to help Job through this difficult time. We cannot fault them for their concern. But as we listen to them counsel Job, we will find that they often mix a little truth with a lot of confusion, conventional but errant human wisdom, and wishful thinking; and they fail miserably either to understand Job’s situation or to help him move on with his life.

Eliphaz speaks first.

3-5: Job, you have told lots of people how to deal with trouble in their lives; and now that a little trouble comes into your life, you fall to pieces.

7-8: There is an immutable law: whatever you sow, that shall you reap.  Since you are reaping trouble, you must have lived a troublesome life.

12-16: I’ve had a vision…

17: Do you think that you are better than God?

18-21: Do you think that you are better than the angels?

What does he say?

a. True, a faith that is only good for others is not real faith.

b. True, a man will reap what he sows (Galatians 6:7-8).

c. True, God has in time past spoken in dreams and visions and via angelic messengers.

But none of this is proof that Job’s faith wasn’t real, or that he had abandoned God. None of this proves that Job’s current problems were of his own doing. And none of this proves that the voice which Eliphaz heard was from God.

Test the spirits, for there are many false prophets in the world (1 John 4:1). And if they present any other gospel, let them be anathema (Galatians 1:8-9).

(to be continued…)

 

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