Year 2, Day 107: Job 13

If Only We Could Know God Face to Face

In this chapter, Job begins by stating a desire to make his case before God rather than having to make his case before human beings.  I find this thought incredibly profound today – especially as someone who often tries to help people in their understanding of God and their relationship with God.  Job clearly indicates that his friends are doing a poor job of representing God.

That really makes a lot of sense.  Since beginning the book of Job, I’ve frequently spoken about how we cannot understand God.  We cannot know His plans.  None of us truly knows the outcome of any particular action or event.  Because of this, we need to be very careful when we speak on God’s behalf.  The last thing that we want to do is to come and try to help and only become a noisy gong beating out senseless and unhelpful advice.  Even worse, we certainly don’t want to try and help a person and end up driving them further from God!

We Think More Highly of Our Righteousness Than We Ought

Then Job spends a good deal of time talking about why he would speak with God.  While I cannot condone the fact that Job seems to desire to contend with God, neither can I say that I have never been there, either.  I know – I think we all know – what it is to be at a place in our life where we desire to have an in-depth conversation with God where we plan of chewing Him out.  When I wrote those words, I understood the absurdity of them.  But just because I think them absurd now doesn’t mean that I haven’t ever been there in my life, either.

Furthermore, there is actually a good side of desiring to contend with God.  Often this world teaches us to disbelieve what we cannot understand.  This world would tell us that if we cannot understand why God would allow us to be in a certain circumstance then we should disbelieve God’s goodness or His sovereignty.  However, that is not what Job is doing here.  Job is not disbelieving anything about God, he is simply seeking answers.  Job wants to contend with God to get the ugliness out of himself – and perhaps find something better to fill himself than with the ugliness.

We should want to seek out the Lord and seek out answers from His wisdom.  Certainly we should really strive to do that in a way that does not pit us antagonistically against God.  However, better to desire to contend with God than to disbelieve in Him altogether!  Better to get the badness out than to keep it in, believe in it, and find our relationship with God dwindling.

Hope

I am likewise touched by Job’s words in Job 13:15-16.  Here Job is talking about hope.  Notice what Job says in verse 15.  Even if God should slay him, Job will still find hope in Him.  This is really a deep and profound thought.  Even if God should ultimately be the cause of Job’s death, that will not change Job’s relationship with God.  Now that is impressive faith!  Here is a man who truly has put all of his hope in God.  Job is telling us that there is nothing that can happen – even at the hand of God – that will change how Job views his relationship with God.

Sure, Job might want to contend with God.  Job might want a piece of God’s mind.  But that doesn’t mean that Job’s relationship with God is going to be any different.  He is salvation; we are the saved.  Nothing will change that dynamic for Job.

Have you ever noticed that there are two – well, at least two – kinds of Christians?  There are the fair-weather Christians and there are the all-weather Christians.  There are some people who make time for God when things are going well, but when a little persecution comes their way or their schedule gets tight you don’t see them involved in their faith anymore.  Then there are the people that when life gets tough they increase their involvement in their faith life.  In these verses Job is making it clear that he is an all-weather Christian.  Nothing in this life can make Job lose his foundation with God.  The more persecution comes his way, the more Job will trust in God.

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Year 2, Day 106: Job 12

Job Sets Up His Response to Zophar

Today we see the reaction to Zophar’s overstated and ill-timed blunt approach.  I think Job makes it pretty clear how he is going to react in his opening words: “No doubt you are ‘the people’ and wisdom will die with you.”  If that doesn’t make things pretty clear, I’m not sure that anything else will!  Job is telling Zophar that his advice is blunt and opinionated and not delivered in a manner that Job cares to listen to at all.

Job Is Resolute

I will give Job credit here.  He is absolutely resolute in his understanding that he did not bring this plague upon himself.  Satan came upon him and cursed him, expecting him to curse God.  Job didn’t. Three friends have now come before him and have chastised Job and told him to repent of his sins, and Job remains resolute.  He is in the right, and he continues to stand up for what he knows to be true.  Job did not bring this upon himself except for being righteous.

Truth: Who Among Us Can Resist God

Job’s speech about God turns us to one of the overarching themes of Job.  Who among us can resist God?  Who among us can even fathom God?  Who among us can ever hope to fully grasp the plan of God?  None of us can even see the fullness of what God is doing in the world.

When God punished the people at the tower of Babel, did any of us see that God was actually spreading out the population of the earth to fill it?  When God led the Hebrew people into Egypt, did any see it as a means to demonstrate His power?  When the Hebrew people were led into captivity, did anyone see it as a means to judge the Hebrew people, judge the Babylonians, and bring forth a remnant of faithful people?  When God sent Jesus, how many truly understood what God was doing in Him before He was resurrected and explained it all to us?

No, the truth is that human beings understand best in hindsight.  We might be able to grasp a glimpse of God’s plan, but we cannot grasp it fully.  What God purposes, we cannot fathom.  We can simply get on board with what God is doing and play our part.

When “getting on board” is easy or fun or productive, we enjoy getting on board with God.  When “getting on board” is being persecuted because of our faithfulness – like Job in this story – it isn’t so much fun.  But that is what the disciple of Christ does.  That is what the follower of God does.

The true follower of God may wrestle with understanding what is happening.  In fact, the most faithful people I know in my life can speak profoundly on their wrestling with God.  But the faithful do not doubt God.  They certainly do not doubt that God was worth believing.

Did Job lose his faith in God?  Certainly not!  Did the true prophets lose their faith when the Hebrew people were dragged off into slavery?  No!  Did James – the disciple of Jesus Christ – lose his faith when Herod dragged him into prison and had him beheaded just for a popularity boost?  No way!  Did Saul lose faith when God struck him with a blinding light and essentially told him that he was wrong in every conceivable way?  No!  The true follower finds God and gets on board with God.  They may not understand.  They may wrestle.  They may only really see exactly what God is doing in hindsight.  But they do get on board with God.

After all, who can stand up to the wisdom and perspective of God?  How many of us can genuinely guarantee that when we set out to do something it will end in happiness, glory, or even righteousness?  No, God is the only one among us who can guarantee that He actually knows what He is doing.

Imperfectly Wrestling With a Perfect God

I think this is one of the most challenging aspects to Job – and I keep coming back to it.  Yes, Job is a sinner – as are we all. But I see Job struggling with his knowledge that God is supreme yet he feels like what is happening is unfair.  As a human being, it is so difficult to put trust in God that He genuinely knows what is actually fair.  It is so hard to accept what comes, deal with it, and trust God.  That is a great struggle.  We can only see fairness in our limited self-centered perspective.

Of course, living in a post-Christ church means that we can genuinely know how much God is in control of fairness.  When we didn’t deserve it, He handed us both salvation and forgiveness on a silver platter.  There can be no question in the believer’s mind that God not only knows the definition of fair – He has exceeded the definition for our sake.  We deserve condemnation; God offers us grace and love and mercy and forgiveness and relationship.

Granted, that doesn’t make it easy to remember in every moment of every day.  Even knowing how gracious God is, it is tough to give control of “fairness” to God.  I feel for Job.  It is hard to be in the midst of something that seems so incredibly unfair and accept it while trusting that God knows best and He will work it out to His glory.

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Year 2, Day 105: Job 11

In this chapter, Zophar gives some fairly sound advice with a few typically human flaws within his speech.  I really don’t find too much to argue with within his speech.  But let’s dive in and see what we shall discover.

Flaw: Approaching the Troubled

The one big flaw that I can see in the opening of his speech is that he forgets to take into account that he is speaking to a human being.  Job is in the midst of his struggle and as such he is going to see with a fairly dark perspective.  In order to minister to a person in that position, those of us who are outside the situation need to accept that the other person is going to come from a dark perspective and try to slowly move them away from it.

This is not what Zophar does.  Zophar comes out and is quite antagonistic with Job’s position.  He accuses Job of talking too much – implying that he really should be listening rather than talking.  Unfortunately we know that listening is important for the counselor because those in distress usually have a lot to say and a need to be heard.

He accuses Job of babbling and mocking God.  Zophar’s words are likely to put Job on the defensive.  This means that it is unlikely that Job is going to actually hear anything that Zophar says.  The first lesson that I learn from Zophar today is that even if we have great ideas – sometimes the way that we say them can determine whether or not the ideas are heard.

Flaw: Assessing the Problem

The other flaw that I can see in Zophar’s words is a hint of believing that Job has a need to repent.  Verses 13 and 14 seem to indicate that Zophar believes that Job does need to repent.  Zophar seems to indicate that Job has some preparation of the heart to accomplish.  Zophar seems to be teaching that there is iniquity within Job.  As we know from the beginning of the story, Job is in the position that he is in because of his righteousness, not his iniquity.  Granted, all of us are sinful by nature and in that sense we all have something to repent.  But in this particular instance the cause of Job’s suffering is not his humanity.  Again we seem to hear one of Job’s friends make that fatal error in discernment.

Wisdom: God is Gracious

Having brought out these detractions from Zophar’s words, let’s take a look at some of the actual theology that Zophar brings.  If we can move beyond Zophar’s indication that Job has some repenting to do, there is some truth that we can apply to humanity in general.  As I said above, all human beings are fallen and not one of us is pure or blameless.  Generally speaking, God does exact from all of us less than we deserve.  This is why God’s nature of grace and mercy are so important to us as human beings.  So in this regard I find Zophar’s words helpful.

Wisdom: Acknowledging Human Limitation in the midst of God’s Greatness

Then Zophar moves into a section of speech where he talks about the greatness of God’s wisdom.  Can any of us ever hope to find the “outer limit” of God?  Can any of us see with enough clarity to find where “God stops?”  No.  Again Zophar seems to be speaking true words here.  What can we know with respect to the limits and boundaries of God?  What can any of us know in comparison to God?

Wisdom: It Is Good To Approach God With Humbleness

As we approach the end, we can also find a bit of wisdom in his words.  Generally speaking, when we do come humbly before the Lord we will find forgiveness.  Then we will be able to lift up our head in His presence.  Our sorrow and suffering will pass away like waters receding from a flood.  We can feel secure and we can know the hope that is in God.  Generally speaking, it is good for us to approach God humbly because then we feel His grace and mercy.  In this instance, Zophar’s words do have some wisdom in them.

Summarizing Zophar’s Speech

As I look back upon this chapter, I wish that Zophar could have looked past the seemingly obvious conclusion that Job must have sinned and needed to repent.  Had Zophar given the advice that he gives in this chapter without implying that Job had some specific repenting to do I think his words would have been very true.  Again this seems to be a chapter reminding us as human beings that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak.  We must take our time in discerning God’s truth in every given situation.

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Year 2, Day 104: Job 10

From Understandable to Spoiled Brat

As much as I supported Job in the last chapter and found him to be genuinely filled with good thoughts, today I find him absolutely behaving like a spoiled child who needs a heavy dose of perspective.  What is it that we call it lately?  He needs a reality check.

Look at Job’s list of complaints:

• Job accuses God of despising the work of His hands
• Job accuses God of having destroyed him
• Job accuses God of having hunted him intentionally and worked wonders against him
• Job accuses God of renewing His witness against Job and continually bringing fresh troops against him
• Job curses the day that he was born (again)
• Job tells God to go away and leave him alone

Now, I understand that Job is in a dark spot in his life.  I get it.  In fact, I’ve been there.  I know what it is like to wonder so much about his future (or lack thereof) and genuinely desire death.  So I understand that Job is talking out of his pain and his anguish.  I understand and I mourn for Job because of where he is at as we read these words.

But the reality is that his place in life is a place of narrow and limited vision.  Job cannot see the future, none of us can – especially when we are in those kind of situations!  So it is normal for him to be in a place of limited perspective.  Yet, that does not make it right to come out and blast God because of our short-sightedness, either.

The Reality Check

God has a plan for Job, God will restore Job.  But even if he didn’t, God has a greater plan for Job.  Now it is time for the reality check.

Our temporal suffering is nothing compared to our eternal hope in God.  Just because we are in a dark place in life at the moment does not mean that we will always be in a dark place in life.  There will come a blessed day when we will stand in the presence of our maker and rejoice knowing that His gift of true life cannot be threatened any longer.  Oh, what a glorious day that will be!

Now, I understand that Job’s perspective on eternal life is completely different than mine.  After all, the idea of the resurrection of the dead and eternal life didn’t really reach its fullness as we understand it now until about the time when the Persians came onto the scene in Hebrew history – and maybe even later than that.  Certainly Job lived well before that, so perhaps I will confess that even now I speak with a perspective to which Job did not have access.  So I will give Job a little slack on this point.  If he didn’t really have an idea about eternal life, I cannot fault him too harshly for losing sight of a perspective to which he did not have access.

Reality Check For Us, Then

However, we do not have the same luxury, do we?  I suppose this is where the truth of this chapter hits home for me.  While I might be able to give Job a slight pass on his accusations because he may not have had access to the concept of eternal life and the resurrection – I cannot give myself the same pass.  I know about the resurrection.  I believe in the resurrection.  I confess that I believe in it every week!  So what excuse do I have when I let myself sink into those dark moments?

The answer is that I have no excuse.  I must remember the advice Job told me yesterday.  All I can do is repent of my sin – my short-sightedness – and return to the Lord with a humble heart while begging for mercy.

Yes, life is hard.  And life is short.  And life is filled with all kinds of problems.  But we must be certain to never forget the promise to come.  We must be certain to never forget the mark, the goal, or the prize.  As Paul tells us in many of his letters, we must keep our eyes focused on Jesus and the prize of salvation and eternal life.  Therein lay the answer to our grief and our human condition.  Oh, how blessed are we to live after Christ has become our first fruits!

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Year 2, Day 103: Job 9

Job gives us some really great thoughts here – and as I would expect I can only find the slightest of flaws within his words.  Let’s start with the minor flaw and then go quickly into the wonderful points of truth that Job brings to the table about God.  Finally, we’ll end with what may be the first (from a historical dating perspective) recognition of the need for Jesus Christ.

Lie: I Am Righteous

The only flaw I can find in Job’s words is that twice he calls himself “right.”  (See Job 9:15,20 – other translations might say “innocent” or “just” instead of right.)  Now, let’s be clear.  God does consider Job righteous.  But he is far from right; and he is certainly far from innocent or blameless.  He is righteous because he has turned to God and understands the importance of God’s role in his ability to have any righteousness at all.  But the only reason that he is right, righteous, just, or justified is because of God.

However, this is my only quibble with Job’s words – and it is fairly insignificant.  We can say with confidence that Job did not bring this tragedy upon himself and he certainly did not deserve it.  So in that perspective – as a refutation of Bildad and Eliphaz – Job can say that he is innocent with respect to why this calamity has happened to him.  But as a whole, Job is as fallen as you are or I am.

Truth: Who Is Bigger Than God?

Let’s move on to some of the great theology that Job does paint in these verses.  Who among us can actually answer God’s accusation of our sinfulness with anything other than, “guilty as charged?”  Who among us can contend with God even once and be in the right?  We among us can harden their heart against God and truly succeed in the end?  What Job is really asking is – who among us is bigger than God?

Truth: God’s Power Is Bigger Than Ours

Then we get to this awesome description of God in Job 9:5-10.  God moves mountains effortlessly; we do not.  God causes the earth to shake; we do not.  God made the stars and the sun; we did not.  God stretched out the heavens and laid down the sea under His foot; we did not.  God arranged the stars into constellations; we did not.  God’s acts of greatness are innumerable; ours are not.  God perceives us; we fail to perceive Him.  Job does an incredible job of giving us perspective on the greatness and sheer magnitude of God.  And even what Job says is still understating who God is and what God can do!

Truth: We Have No Defense, Just Confession and Repentance

The rest of the chapter is then devoted to the pointlessness of trying to make a defense against God’s action or God’s accusations.  We cannot answer God.  We can only appeal for mercy.  We cannot lift up any defense against His righteous accusations.  He is wiser, mightier, and more righteous than all of us put together!  Who among us can think of anything other than our own reasons for condemnation when we are in His presence?

Truth: We Need An Arbiter

This leads us to the end of the chapter – and what a beautiful end of the chapter it is.  Job 9:33 is such an incredibly profound verse: “There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand upon us both.”  This is such an incredibly profound verse because it is at this moment that Job realizes the need for Jesus Christ.

Now, let’s think about this historically for a second.  Most people believe that the story of Job predates Moses, and likely could even predate Abraham.*  If this story does genuinely predate Moses, then Job is the earliest book in the Bible to be written.  What this likely means, then, is that in the oldest book of the Bible we have a clear reference to at least one person who is able to make the theological connection for their need of an arbiter between them and God.

I don’t know about you, but that is really cool to me today.  The fact that we can put our finger on that verse and conclude with reasonable assurance that even as far back as Job there were loyal followers of God who knew that life would be better with an arbiter between them and God is powerful stuff.  Job understands that if there was someone who knew what it was like to be God and who knew what it was like to be human – then his ability to stand in the presence of God might actually be possible!

Let that thought really sink in for a second.  To put your hand on someone’s shoulder is to identify with them and connect to them.  This whole chapter is about Job’s inability to stand in the presence of God without being completely convinced of his condemnation and his guilt.  But if there were an arbiter – someone who knew what it was like to be both God and human – Job hints that he believes that things might be different.  If there were an arbiter, Job might be able to stand in the presence of God meaningfully.

This is just a really cool thought on so many levels.  But the most fundamental element of this thought is that here we have the most basic understanding of why we need Jesus: without an arbiter, we cannot meaningfully stand in the presence of God.  In order to be able to stand in God’s presence, we need someone who knows what it is like to be both human and God.  That is the most basic understanding of why Jesus had to come.  He had to be the bridge between us and God.

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* There is little Biblical evidence for this claim.  Ezekiel mentions Job twice in his book, implying that at the latest Job was a contemporary of Ezekiel.  However, we are also told that Job lived 140 years after the events of this book took place – and since Job had grown children at the beginning of this book he was likely at least 30 or 40 at the beginning of this book.  From the Biblical perspective on ages, human beings were not recorded as living 180 or more years except for the time prior to Moses – and actually the age fits for having Job as a contemporary to Abraham.  However, please understand that this point is largely conjecture and not based upon empirical Biblical evidence.

Year 2, Day 102: Job 8

Bildad: Not All Bad

Bildad’s advice seems great.  And I’m going to give Bildad a ton of credit here.  He does give some incredible spiritual advice.  As I read through Bildad’s words I kept finding myself nodding in agreement and saying, “Yep, there’s truth in that.”  So I really do tip my hat to him in being a person who seems to be able to absorb an incredible amount of wisdom into his life.

For example, can God pervert justice?  Certainly not!  And who can argue with Bildad when he talks about the importance of pleading for mercy and trying to live an upright life?  How many of us can argue that in the grand scheme of things each of our lives is anything but a shadow?  Is it not true that the hope of the godless perishes?  Does not the person who forgets God ultimately experience a withering?

You see, Bildad has taken some incredible truth here and spit it forth to Job.  He has given some really great advice.  None of those things can really be argued against.  They shouldn’t be argued against.  They’re all spiritually sound pieces of advice!

Lie: Prosperity Equals Righteousness

However, Bildad is also guilty of the same offense as Eliphaz.  Although they begin in great wisdom, they do not end in great wisdom.  Bildad takes great wisdom and uses it to put God in his box.  Bildad takes circumstantial wisdom and applies it to God in some sort of demonstration of universal truth.  Let’s take another look at some of the things Bildad asserts.

Bildad seems to be telling Job that if he is pure and upright that God will rouse Himself and restore Job.  Now, that seems like truth because we want it to be true.  It even seems like truth about Job!  After all, does not Job restore Job at the end of this book? 

However, we need to remember that God restores Job on His merit and for His glory, not as some “earned reward” that Job truly deserves.  Yes, God does care for those who are faithful to Him.  Yes, God will raise all of His faithful to eternal life in the end.  Those promises are God’s promises and are all true.  But God does not promise that if we are righteous and upright that we will prosper from the perspective of the world.  God is not interested in making His servants the most glorious people in the world. 

That’s a really hard pill for us to swallow – because human beings are inherently selfish.  We know this is a really hard pill to swallow because Eliphaz and Bildad have both now stumbled upon this incorrect theological assertion!  Human beings want to believe in a God that will prosper us from the perspective of this world.  We want to believe that if we are righteous we will be have a great name and a great life.  Perhaps more importantly, we want this to be true so that we can look at a person’s prosperity and judge their character.

God will prosper us.  However, He will cause us to prosper spiritually, not materialistically.  God is not interested in equating righteousness with worldly prosperity.  Neither should we be interested in that same pursuit.

Lie: God Does Not Associate With Evildoers

Towards the end of his speech, Bildad makes another theological mistake.  He says that “God will not take the hand of evildoers.”  I find this to be another shallow truth that we all want to believe.  But it isn’t true at all.

As a simple demonstration, let me ask a simple question.  Which one of us was righteous on our own merit when God came to us and offered the free gift of salvation?  When God took my hand, he took the hand of an evildoer.  For me to claim anything else is to deny my true being.  My nature is sin, my flesh is corrupt.  When God came to me, He took a corrupt sinner and grabbed my hand to lead me into His righteousness.

Maybe you’d like an even stronger case of this.  Think of King Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians.  Did not God take Nebuchadnezzar’s hand – the hand of a “pagan” – and lead Nebuchadnezzar against His own people to teach them a lesson?  Were not God’s people led into captivity under Nebuchadnezzar under God’s hand?  Now, I’m not claiming that Nebuchadnezzar stopped being evil and found salvation with God.  That’s between him and God and not for me to judge – although there are more than a few validating pieces of scripture to at least consider the claim.  But regardless of the matter of salvation, certainly God took Nebuchadnezzar’s hand and accomplished His will through an enemy.

To claim that God only pays attention to the upright and God cannot work through an evildoer is shallow faith.  It puts God into our box.  It creates an evaluation tool that ends up giving false results.  It actually leads to a “prosperity Gospel,” in which we assume that God loves most those people who have a “good life” according to the stuff they have and the trouble-free life they live.  That’s just simply not the way God thinks.  God blesses those He blesses.  He lavishes blessing upon the just and the unjust.  That is what God says about Himself.  To say that God loves the prosperous and the peaceful the most denies the closeness that God has had with most of His servants throughout the scope of His Word!

Reflections Into The Present

As we go through Job, I am really beginning to get a sense of just how important it is for me to continue to be cautious about giving “spiritual advice.”  Yes, I do it all the time.  I’m not saying we should stop giving advice, but I think we need to be careful about the advice we give.  If we cannot know the mind of God, we should be careful giving absolute advice as Eliphaz gave earlier and Bildad gives here.

I am in another cliché mood today, so I am going to examine the cliché: “Where there is smoke, there’s fire.”  Let me say that I do believe that in the right context this cliché demonstrates great truth.  However, it is simply a human understanding, so it is prone to failing.  I guess that’s my whole point today with Blidad, too.

Where there is smoke, there is usually fire.  If I sin, I will reap the consequences.  That’s Bildad’s point.  On the other hand, just because I am reaping negative consequences doesn’t automatically mean that the consequences are from my own sin.  In other words, just because I am living in “smoke” does not mean that the smoke is from my own fire.  This is where Bildad makes his first mistake.  Job’s living in smoke, but the fire isn’t his.

We need to be careful of people who present a “one plus one equals two” kind of theology.  Life is never that simple or that straightforward.  One plus one might equal two.  But as I learned in physics class when I had to learn vector math, one plus one can actually equal any result between zero and two (including zero and two).  Dealing with spirituality demands the same kind of flexibility in obtaining truth. 

Truth is almost always simple in its understanding.  But truth is rarely simple in its application.  This is what allows people to start with sound theology and end up giving spiritually unsound advice.

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Year 2, Day 101: Job 7

Job’s Continued Focus on His Loss

Job 7 begins with a continuati0n of Job speaking about his life.  Keep in mind that not only has Job’s children died and his possessions have either been consumed or stolen but his skin has broken out into sores in addition to all sorts of other serious health problems.  With all this taken into account, I don’t think that Job is over exaggerating in these opening verses.  If his health problems continue to exist, Job will have long nights that should be filled with sleeping but will in reality be filled with pain.  He will forever feel as though his skin is filled with dirt, puss, and infectious parasites.  He will have months of emptiness.  Granted, Job cannot know how long the affliction will last.  But let’s face it.  As I’ve said in the past, human beings tend to assume good things will fade quickly and bad times will last forever.

I find nothing inappropriate with Job’s words in these opening 6 verses.  He is faced with a dark future unless something unforeseeable happens.  He isn’t accusing God at this point; he is simply reciting what he believes to be his future.  It may be a little short-sighted since we do know what is going on behind the scenes.  But Job would have no way of knowing either the future restoration or the present reason for his condition.  The most for which we can blame Job is having a little too much despair and perhaps not enough faith.  But given the circumstance, I bet I’d be right there with him.  Maybe it’s a lesson for me to learn just how fickle faith can be.

Lie: Better to Die Than Live In Pain

Job’s perspective on death in verses 7-11 do need a little mitigating.  When Job says that a person who goes down to Sheol (the place of the dead) doesn’t come back again, he isn’t contradicting the plan of God or the resurrection that Christians believe in as evidenced by Jesus Christ.  Rather, he is stating what he knows for the time that he lived.  For Job, when a person died, they went to the place of the dead.  They didn’t come back to life in this world.  Thus, what Job is talking about is that if his life is going to be nothing until he dies, then when he dies he has nothing to look forward to.  He knows that nobody will remember a poor man who lost everything and suffered from horrible diseases. 

Interestingly enough, however, millions of people actually still remember Job!  We remember Job not because he was perfect but because God is perfect.  We remember Job because although he stumbles here and there, he does not lose faith.

Lie: Bad Things Come Only as a Consequence of Sinfulness

As we reach the end of Job’s speech, we do see a place where Job pushes too far in his complaint.  Because Job does not see with the perspective of God, Job falls back to the wisdom of Eliphaz.  Job himself begins to assume that his life is as it is because he has done something against God.  Job assumes that he has become a burden to God.  Job assumes that God refuses to take away his iniquity.  However, as I have said in earlier blogs, Job is actually in this predicament because of his faithfulness. 

It is really easy to see pain and suffering as a badge of dishonor; it is far more difficult to see the pain and suffering as a badge of honor.  When we put Job’s story next to the story of Jesus Christ, it makes far more sense.  God did not spare his own Son.  In fact, Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient into death – even death on a cross. (See Philippians 2:8)  If we are to follow God – and follow Christ – we must open up our perspective to the possibility that suffering can sometimes be a badge of honor rather than a badge of dishonor.

We must not be quick to take this thought to the opposite extreme, either.  Just as not all suffering is a badge of dishonor, not all suffering is a badge of honor, either.  Some people do bring suffering upon themselves out of their sinfulness.  Sometimes we do need to repent when our sinfulness brings about suffering.  The trick is learning how to determine which suffering is pointing us to repentance and which suffering is a badge of honor.  This is in many respects one of the underlying themes of the book of Job.

Summary of the Chapter

In the end, we can’t really fault Job too much.  Sure, he makes an error in judgment and he draws the wrong conclusion.  However, given his predicament I can’t say that I wouldn’t have drawn the same conclusions.  Who doesn’t think that when they are in despair that it is because they’ve done something wrong? 

We can, however, learn from his mistakes.  We can learn that when suffering and trials come our way we should ask if they are to our honor or dishonor before immediately assuming that we are in the predicament because of our error.

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Year 2, Day 100: Job 6

Back to Job and His Humanity

In Job 6, we change from Eliphaz’s speech to Job’s speech.  We also get to see a bit of a misstep in Job’s words.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that Job loses his faith or anything.  But we do see a misstep in his faith.  Job proves his humanity.  But you know what, I’ve been there.  I’ve done that.  I’ve said things out of my pain – or even out of my ignorance! – that were simply wrong. 

I’ve said it a number of times here on the blog and I’ll probably say it more.  God does not demand perfection, he demands humble repentance.  Before this book is over, we’ll see God call Job and the friends into repentance.  So for now, let’s look at how Job also takes a misstep as he tries to understand the world around him and the God who created it.

Lie: God Is An Adversary

Job’s first misstep is to paint God as an adversary.  In Job 6:4 we hear that “the arrows of the Almighty are within me and my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.”  Don’t get me wrong.  If what happened to Job happened to me, then I could see myself saying these very same things.  What Job says is very understandable given his circumstance.  He is not able to be objective or accurate.  I understand that and I am willing to cut him a little slack.  But that doesn’t change the fact that he is still wrong.

In reality, the Lord has not sought to destroy him!  In fact, the Lord has actually presented him with an opportunity to be a witness to the world!  Sure, it might be really hard to see it from Job’s perspective, so I’m not going to lay any fault upon him for that.  But from the perspective of the outsider that we have – that is exactly what God has done.

Think about the story so far.  Satan comes before God and accuses God of being loved solely because He is generous to the people who love Him.  God challenges Satan on this point and Job is selected.  Job is given the honor of being “God’s test-case.”  Job is a sort of “test-case” scenario for all of humanity.  And how does it end?  Job is still faithful!  Job is a witness against Satan’s accusation!  Then Eliphaz comes along.  He puts out some decently shallow theology which is actually all wrong in the end.  Job has the opportunity now be a witness to Eliphaz and be a challenge to his theology.  Just for the record, although he makes a few mistakes of his own along the way he is still a faithful witness.

From the outside, we can see that Job has not actually been God’s target of wrath.  Job is actually God’s target of righteousness.  I know what you might be thinking … if this is how God treats the righteous, then we might not want to be righteous!  But let’s put that in perspective, shall we?  Do we believe in God or not?  Do we submit to God humbly or not?  Do we trust that in the life to come God can demonstrate His righteousness or not?  If so, then why would we not desire to be a demonstration of His righteousness here on earth?  Is not a little temporal pain something worth enduring in order to experience His eternal glory?

Lie: Desiring that God Would Crush One’s Life

This misstep launches into a secondary misstep.  Job honestly begs that God would crush his life.  Then Job asks what strength he has in order to be able to wait.  He wonders what future he has in order that he should be patient.  He then believes that all resource has been driven from him.

This is a classic error of short-sighted human nature.  We simply do not perpetually focus on God and His promises.  Instead we do perpetually focus on our own present circumstances.  Furthermore, humanity has a pessimistic streak within us that assumes that when bad things come upon us that they will linger forever.  We have a much easier time believing things will go from good to bad and stay bad than believing things can go from bad to good and stay good. 

On this point, though, I cannot judge Job.  While I do confess that what he says here is absolutely wrong, I must also confess that I am guilty of the same thing.  I know what it is like to beg and plead that God would crush my life.  I know what it is like to be in so much pain and attack that I desired to be released from both living and having to endure it.  But I also confess that in all circumstances I have been wrong.  God has yet to not provide.  God has yet to not have some further plan for me beyond the turmoil.  I am simply impatient.

Job does have hope.  He is the Lord’s!  We should be mindful of that fact more often.

Truth: We Need Community

The middle part of this chapter speaks to the spiritual bond that should be between people of the faith.  Look at what Job seems to be indicating in his words.  Job looks around and he sees people who look to mistreat him, who look to withhold their presence from him, who actually look to avoid him, who express disappointment in Job, and who are forceful in their correction.  What Job desires is to have people who will be there to help him walk through life.  He wants people who can help him find truth, but not do it in a way that tears him down.  He wants people who will be neighborly in his affliction.

Don’t we all?

Summarizing Job’s Reply

We do see hope and faithfulness in Job – even among his missteps.  Job is open to being taught and he is open to correction, see Job 6:24.  Job believes that he still remains faithful to God, see Job 6:10.  And in the end he has.  Job may have made a few missteps and he may have gotten the wrong perspective a little, but he hasn’t violated God’s dominion and His authority.  He is asserting what he is thinking; yet he still remains open. 

We can learn a good lesson from Job on this point.  It is good to get our thoughts out into the open.  But we need to do so in a way that we continue to be open to the fact that we may be wrong.  Truthfully, in times of turmoil we probably are wrong.

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Year 2, Day 99: Job 5

Deception: Prosperity Gospel

At first, Job 5 reads as very sound advice that Eliphaz gives to Job.  After all, doesn’t it seem like sound advice for a person to say, “As for me, I would seek God?”  Or how about the sensibility in saying, “He saves the needy from the sword of their mouth and from the hand of the mighty?”  Doesn’t it sound hopeful to say that “in famine He will redeem you from death and in war from the power of the sword?”

We want to believe this theology.  We want to sense the truth in it.  We want to believe that God rewards the faithful and God punishes the unfaithful.  We want to believe it, but we know that it just isn’t always true in this world.  If following God’s ways brought about a perfect life in this world, don’t you think more people would be trying it more seriously?  Don’t get me wrong, I do believe following God’s ways is the only way to go.  However, I don’t believe that following God’s ways produces a life in perfect harmony with this world.

As we did with the last chapter, let’s look at how what seems to be good sound advice is actually not all that sound.

There can be no doubt that Eliphaz is aware of Job’s devotion to God.  We know for a fact that Eliphaz is absolutely aware that Job has spent 7 days sitting in ashes trying to discern what is happening to his life.  From this perspective, doesn’t it seem pretty shallow for Eliphaz to tell Job to seek God and commit to God?  Eliphaz’s advice is a bit like telling someone who has been praying to God for a decade about a certain problem that if they just prayed a little harder their problem would be resolved.  Or, it is like telling someone who has a strong faith life that they should try praying in a different way.  There is a time and a place for that kind of advice, but more often than not this kind of advice is simply trite to a genuinely faithful person.  Advice such as this is given by people shallow in their own faith who don’t appreciate the faith of others.

If a person is genuinely not in a relationship with God, then advising them to get into a relationship with God is sound advice.  But to tell someone that God already considers righteous that they need to turn to God is nothing less than a complete misdiagnosis of the problem.  There is no legitimate truth in Eliphaz’s advice to Job.  Job has already turned to God and from God’s perspective Job is already righteous.  To tell someone in Job’s condition that they need to go to God is equal to assuming that their condition is occurring because they aren’t with God.  In Job’s case, this is simply flawed reasoning.  It’s wrong.

Let’s look at another example.  What about this idea that God always saves us from hunger or the sword of the mighty?  Sure, God does demonstrate His ability to do this if it suits His will and it will serve to bring glory to His name.  But the unfortunate reality in our world is that many faithful people have died from starvation throughout history.  Many Christians and faithful Jews have been martyrs for the faith.  The truth is that there are higher agendas at work than the continuation of my human existence.  To think that my continued existence is the thing that will serve God’s agenda the best is actually setting myself and my life up as an idol rather than humbling myself to obedience to God’s call wherever it should lead.

Take the twelve disciples.  How many of their martyrdoms actually helped propel the kingdom forward?  Or what about the martyrdom of Stephen?  Surely Stephen’s death was one of the greatest single steps forward that the church experienced.  Yes, God can indeed save the hungry and free the oppressed.  Sometimes salvation in that manner does come in this life.  In all cases it definitely comes in the life to come.  But to present a theology that God will always save a faithful person from whatever woe they encounter in this life is simply to force God into a box that we have created for Him.  It is prosperity gospel through and through.

Unfortunately, we cannot force God to dwell inside of our box.  It’s bad theology to think that saving us in this present age is at the top of God’s agenda.  History – and God’s Word – simply doesn’t support such a conclusion.  Salvation is at the top of God’s agenda, but it is the salvation in the life to come that God promises, not necessarily salvation from our temporal woes!

If you need another example, consider what Eliphaz says in verse 26.  Eliphaz seems to indicate that should Job truly be with God that he will die a death in his old age.  There are indeed many faithful that are allowed to live a long life.  However, there have been many people who died well before their time – people who died because of their faith!  I’ve already mentioned Stephen, and I could add 10 of the 12 original disciples here.  Or perhaps we could talk about important historical figures like Jan Hus or Deitrich Bonhoeffer.  The person who is faithful to God can live a good life into an old age, but just because a person is righteous does not imply that they will live a long life.  The righteous person will live the life that God has called them to live and follow that calling into death whenever it comes.

Summing Up Eliphaz

Consider the true implications of what Eliphaz says.  As we heard yesterday, all of his words seem to be very sound advice on the surface.  Who doesn’t want to say that God will save a person?  Who doesn’t want to paint God out as capable of bringing us out of our woes?  Sure, God can save.  But the reality is that sometimes our strife brings about God’s kingdom more than our ease.

The conclusions that Eliphaz reaches put God in a box that he has created for God.  Eliphaz’s conclusions teach about a God who is hemmed into our understanding.  Eliphaz is teaching that it is alright to limit God to a deity that meets our expectations rather than being a God who is accountable to His own understanding – an understanding that far exceeds our own.

Eliphaz has made God into the God that he wants to serve.  Eliphaz’s words do not come out of a humbleness that seeks after God.  Eliphaz’s words are out of a pride that asserts what he wants to believe is true. 

Who among us don’t struggle with that temptation from time to time?  Wouldn’t we all rather believe in a God that makes sense to us rather than approach His Word knowing that to understand Him means it is we who need to change our understanding?

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Year 2, Day 98: Job 4

Confession

As I read Job 4, I have to confess something.  There is some wisdom in Eliphaz’s counsel.  However, it is not all wise.  This chapter – and most of Eliphaz’s speeches – gives us a great foil against which we can prepare for the world.

Truth: It’s All Good Until Trouble Comes Home

At the beginning, Eliphaz does speak some truth.  Eliphaz does rightly accuse Job of being human in that he can give out sound advice until he is the one in the problem.  Once trouble comes to roost, Job’s advice crumbles.

That is true for most human beings.  When we are strong and stable in life, we can be a very useful voice-piece for God.  However, when trouble comes our way we are far less likely to be a strong voice of God’s wisdom.  It is human nature.  As the self-monger within us builds up those initial protective walls that I spoke of last chapter, we focus on ourselves and our own turmoil.  This inherently makes us less likely to be able to speak of God’s ways to others.

Truth: Sin Is the Leading Cause of Death

Eliphaz also appears to speak some truth when he says that those who sow trouble reap trouble.  In the grand scheme of things he is correct.  As one of my favorite T-shirts says, “Sin is the leading cause of death.”  We all reap what we sow, eventually.

Truth: No One is (Naturally) Righteous Before God

At the end of this chapter Eliphaz does hint at truth once more.  Can a mortal be in the right before God?  Can any of us be pure before God?  Of course the answer to those questions is no.  All of us have sinned.  Every one of us is guilty of our sinfulness before God.

Lie: The Impatience of Grief

However, there are a number of things that Eliphaz gets wrong here.  First, Eliphaz speaks of Job as being impatient.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t know that I would call a man who sat around in ashes for 7 days impatient.  I understand what Eliphaz is trying to say here in that Job cannot possibly know the future and that he needs to be patient to let God reveal Himself.  We do need to realize that God often takes longer to unfold His plan than we have patience to wait.  However, I can only imagine the sheer pain that Job has endured and I think that mourning in silence for 7 days shows a great deal of patience.

Lie: Focus on Yourself

Next, notice that Eliphaz ever-so-subtly directs Job to begin to focus on himself.  What is it that Eliphaz tells Job is his hope in verse 6?  Eliphaz says that Job’s “integrity of his ways” is his hope.  Is that really truth?  Are any of us righteous because of the integrity of our ways?  Sure, Eliphaz may be saying these words to build up Job and to try to remind him of his integrity.  But Eliphaz is wrong with what he says here.  If our hope is in that we are good people, we are all doomed.  Our hope is only in God.  Who among us can save us from disease or even death because we have integrity?

Lie: The Righteous Don’t Perish

Then Eliphaz talks about how nobody who is righteous ever perishes.  On a very shallow level Eliphaz is truthful.  None of us are righteous, and we all die.  However, that isn’t what Eliphaz means when he speaks these words and the words that follow. 

The argument that Eliphaz is making is that Job’s pain implies that he has done something quite seriously wrong.  Eliphaz is arguing that Job’s pain is evidence of some unrighteous act in his past.  This is simply not true.  Bad things happen to good people just as often as good things happen to bad people.  We cannot judge a person’s righteousness by whether or not they are living a good and happy life!  In fact, one might make a case to say that the Bible argues that those who walk closely with God will live a life of friction with the world!

Lie: We Are Untrustworthy In God’s Presence

Now we turn to the end of the chapter.  We’ve already spoken of the truth in what Eliphaz says about all of us being guilty before God.  However, Eliphaz gets something tragically wrong here.  We may not be able to be righteous on our own merit before God, but we can certainly find forgiveness.  If we are repentant and contrite then we can absolutely find forgiveness!  In that case we can absolutely stand righteous before our God.  We stand not on our own righteousness, but on His!

Summing Up Eliphaz

As we look at Eliphaz, we should see the world in his words.  How many times does advice from the world start in what appears to be truth?  How often do we hear people talking about “their experience?”  How many times does what they say seem to be true?  Almost everything that comes from the world seems to be true in the beginning.

However, we cannot gain absolute truth from the world.  As we see here in Job 4, truth that is not founded upon the sanctity and righteousness of God’s Word will eventually fall apart.  When we listen to people speak in this world, we need to learn to become active and look past the shallow truth that seems to be apparent and see if there is genuine truth in what they are saying or not.

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Year 2, Day 97: Job 3

The Rest of the Book

As we enter Job 3, we transition to a completely different style of writing than the first two chapters.  The first two chapters set up the cosmic battle between good and evil.  The first two chapters set up the conflict between a loyal God and a very destructive Satan.  The first two chapters show us a God who has confidence in His true believers and a Satan that wishes nothing more than to destroy the relationship between God and His true believers.

The rest of the book takes a look at how humanity deals with this conflict.  And we must be absolutely careful.  We must respect a very fine line as we go through these chapters.  Here’s the essence of the line:

• It is going to be easy to criticize Job and his three friends for their apparent lack of faith in God.  However, we must remember that we are human beings and we do not have an eternal mindset.  Thus, we must take things as they come, process them, deal with them, understand them, and move beyond them.  A great part of this process is talking and thinking things through.  It is human nature to need to process the stuff that happens to us in this world.  After all, if we never processed we would neither learn nor grow.  So we must not be harsh or critical about Job and his friends’ genuine need to process what is happening.
• On the other hand, we should never let any level of processing lead to questioning God’s relationship with us.  It is one thing to question how something can happen; it is entirely another thing to question if God really loves or if God really cares.  The former question is born out of the human need to understand and thus it is a good question to ask; the latter takes our need for understanding and pushes us into the realm of questioning God’s character.  We as human beings have every right to understand the things happening to us as best as we can and then grow from them.  The human being has no right to question the character and nature of God and thus establish himself as judge over God.  That doesn’t mean we don’t do it or can’t do it – it just means that when we do it we cross a line.

Job’s Processing

Keeping these things in mind, let’s go through this chapter of Job.  Here we get a chance to listen to Job speak.  This chapter is the very first essence of his thoughts.  As with most human beings, our first response to tragedy is born of pure emotion – and most of it is self-centered emotion.  Those of you who have read this blog for a while will be familiar with my concept of the self-monger.  This chapter is Job’s self-monger trying to come out and trying to gain control.  All Job can think about is his pain and his suffering.  The pain is so new that it is consuming his thoughts.  The self-monger rages and sets up a self-centered barrier that initially helps him learn to deal with this newfound pain.

At this moment in Job’s life all he wishes is that he would have died before this ever happened.  The new pain is so great that he genuinely believes that it would have been better for him to have never lived than to have to tolerate this present existence. 

You know what?  This is a pretty common human reaction.  Or, at least, it is pretty common within me.  I’ve been there.  I’ve been in a situation where life appeared so bleak that I asked God why I was even born.   In moments like these it seems as though it would have been easier to never have lived than to deal with what is currently happening.  What Job is experiencing here is completely normal for a human being.

Yet, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it is completely selfish.  Is a current experience of pain ever worth losing all the prior moments of joy?  Is there any experience of pain that is so great that it minimizes our relationship with God?  Yes, the suffering and the processing that Job is doing is completely natural and it is often the first step in pain management.  But if carried very far at all it will turn destructive within us.

Job Knows His Limitations

To this end, you will notice what Job does not do in this chapter.  Job does not question God.  Neither does Job give up.  Yes, Job wrestles with the pain.  He wrestles with what the rest of his life is going to be like now that his life has turned to tragedy.  But he does not turn it into questioning God or thinking that he can be a judge over God.  He is not willing to let the raging self-monger take this initial step of dealing with the pain into an unhealthy place.  Job contains the self-monger.

This brings us back to the balance we must remember throughout this book.  Job has to deal with the pain.  Life will be better if he gets the emotional crud that is inside of him out of him.  Ask any counselor or psychologist – they’ll tell you the truth in that sentence.  Job needs a moment of self-centered-barrier-construction in order to get a handle on the new circumstances of his life.  But what he does not need to do is bring about the dissolving of his relationship with God. 

I’d like to believe Job knows that it will be his relationship with God that will get him through the rest of his life.  So Job deals with the pain – admittedly selfishly for the time being.  But Job has done so in a way that leaves the door to God wide open so that eventually he will be able to move beyond the immediate self-centeredness in which he finds himself.

I think this is part of why God’s Word continues to call Job a righteous man.  Even though he is human and even though he does have to begin in a self-centered perspective just to cope with the pain of his new circumstances, he never closes the door on God or brings God’s character into question.  We can learn a lot from Job on this regard.

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