we have investigated

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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we have investigated

Job 5:1-27 (JDV)

Job 5:1 Call now! Will anyone answer you? Which of the holy ones will you turn to?
Job 5:2 Because anger kills a fool, and jealousy slays the gullible.
Job 5:3 I have seen a fool taking root, but I immediately pronounced a curse on his home.
Job 5:4 His children are far from safety. They are crushed at the city gate, with no one to rescue them.
Job 5:5 The hungry eat his harvest, even taking it out of the thorns. The thirsty pant for his children’s wealth.
Job 5:6 For distress does not grow out of the soil, and trouble does not sprout from the ground.
Job 5:7 But humans are born for trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.
Job 5:8 However, if I were you, I would appeal to God and would present my case to him.
Job 5:9 He does great and unsearchable things, miracles without number.
Job 5:10 He gives rain to the land and sends water to the fields.
Job 5:11 He sets the humble on high, and mourners are lifted to safety.
Job 5:12 He frustrates the schemes of the crafty so that they achieve no success.
Job 5:13 He traps the wise in their craftiness so that the plans of the deceptive are quickly ended.
Job 5:14 They encounter darkness by day, and they grope at noon as if it were night.
Job 5:15 He saves the needy from their sharp words and from the clutches of the powerful.
Job 5:16 So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.
Job 5:17 See how happy the mortal is whom God corrects; so, do not reject the discipline of the Almighty.
Job 5:18 Because he wounds but he also bandages; he strikes, but his hands also heal.
Job 5:19 He will rescue you from six calamities; no harm will touch you in seven.
Job 5:20 In famine he will redeem you from death, and in battle, from the power of the sword.
Job 5:21 You will be safe from slander and not fear destruction when it comes.
Job 5:22 You will laugh at destruction and hunger and not fear the land’s wild creatures.
Job 5:23 Because you will have a covenant with the stones of the field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
Job 5:24 You will know that your tent is secure, and nothing will be missing when you inspect your home.
Job 5:25 You will also know that your offspring will be many and your descendants like the grass of the ground.
Job 5:26 You will approach the grave in full strength, as a stack of sheaves is gathered in its season.
Job 5:27 We have investigated this, and it is true! Hear it and understand it for yourself.

we have investigated

Eliphaz was so confident that he had Job’s problem all figured out. Such confidence cannot exist in the same body as true compassion. If you are not willing to give a suffering person your compassion, at least withhold your judgment.

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eyes of grace

Posted on June 13, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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eyes of grace

Job 4:1-21 (JDV)

Job 4:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
Job 4:2 Should anyone try to speak with you when you are so tired? Yet who can keep from speaking?
Job 4:3 Indeed, you have instructed many and have strengthened weak hands.
Job 4:4 Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling and braced the knees that were buckling.
Job 4:5 But now that this has happened to you, you have become tired. It strikes you, and you are overwhelmed.
Job 4:6 Isn’t your piety your confidence, and the integrity of your life your hope?
Job 4:7 Think about this: who has been destroyed when he was innocent? Where have the honest been made to disappear?
Job 4:8 In my experience, those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same.
Job 4:9 They are destroyed at a single breathing from God and come to an end by the breath of his nostrils.
Job 4:10 The lion may roar and the fierce lion growl, but the teeth of young lions are broken.
Job 4:11 The strong lion dies if it catches no prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
Job 4:12 A word was brought to me in secret; my ears caught a whisper of it.
Job 4:13 Among unsettling thoughts from visions in the night, when deep sleep comes over men,
Job 4:14 fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shake.
Job 4:15 I felt a wind on my face, and the hair on my body stood up.
Job 4:16 A figure stood there, but I could not recognize its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes. I heard a whispering voice:
Job 4:17 “Can a mortal be righteous before God? Can a healthy man be purer than his Maker?”
Job 4:18 If God puts no trust in his servants and he charges his angels with foolishness,
Job 4:19 how much more those who dwell in clay houses, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth!
Job 4:20 They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; they be destroyed forever while no one notices.
Job 4:21 Are their tent cords not pulled up? They die without wisdom.

eyes of grace

Eliphaz accuses Job of being impatient and dismayed. The world that Eliphaz knows about is one in which everything happens according to set rules. He cannot imagine a scenario in which a person who is truly righteous is allowed to suffer as Job has. He therefore concludes that Job has committed some secret sin, and failed God in some way. He urges Job to seek his answer in God, and not to insist on his own righteousness. Ordinarily, that argument makes sense: none of us are perfect, and suffering is often the consequence of our own mistakes. But here, it is Eliphaz who is dismayed. It is Eliphaz who has not been patient enough to find the real answer. It is right to direct our suffering friends to God. But sometimes their suffering will not be because they need to be reconciled to him. Sometimes they just need his restoring touch.

LORD, may we not be so quick to condemn those who are unfortunate. May we see them through your eyes of grace, and bring them to you in love.

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death no escape

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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death no escape

Job 3:1-26 (JDV)

Job 3:1 After this, Job opened his mouth and declare the day he was born cursed.
Job 3:2 He said:
Job 3:3 May the day I was born be destroyed, and the night that said, “A healthy man is conceived.”
Job 3:4 If only that day had turned to darkness! May God above not care about it, or light shine on it.
Job 3:5 May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it. May what darkens the day terrify it.
Job 3:6 If only darkness had taken that night away! May it not appear among the days of the year or be listed in the calendar.
Job 3:7 Yes, may that night be barren; may no joyful shout be heard in it.
Job 3:8 Let those who curse days condemn it, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
Job 3:9 May its morning stars grow dark. May it wait for daylight but have none; may it not see the breaking of dawn.
Job 3:10 For that night did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb and hide sorrow from my eyes.
Job 3:11 Why was I not stillborn; why didn’t I die as I came from the womb?
Job 3:12 Why did the knees receive me, and why were there breasts for me to nurse?
Job 3:13 Now I would certainly be lying down in peace; I would be asleep. Then I would be at rest
Job 3:14 with the kings and counselors of the land, who rebuilt ruined cities for themselves,
Job 3:15 or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.
Job 3:16 Or why was I not hidden like a miscarried child, like infants who never see daylight?
Job 3:17 There the wicked cease to make trouble, and there the weary find rest.
Job 3:18 The prisoners are completely at rest; they do not hear a taskmaster’s voice.
Job 3:19 Both small and great are there, and the slave is set free from his master.
Job 3:20 Why is light given to one burdened with grief, and life to those whose throat is bitter,
Job 3:21 who wait for death, but it does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasure,
Job 3:22 who are filled with much joy and are glad when they reach the grave?
Job 3:23 Why is life given to a healthy man whose path is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
Job 3:24 I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.
Job 3:25 Because the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.
Job 3:26 I cannot relax or be calm; I have no rest, because turmoil has come.

death no escape

Job had only one thing left. He had his life, and he cursed the day of his birth. Life had been precious to him, and now he saw it as a prison. Seeing how much people suffer, it is no surprise that some philosophers envision death as an escape from that prison. Socrates drank the poison hemlock because he saw it as a means of escape from the trap that his body had become. Job wanted to escape as well, but his view of death was different than that of Socrates and Plato. For Job, death was lying down, being quiet, and resting. It was joining the small and the great (everyone) in a place where there is no light, no consciousness. It is easy to see why someone who has suffered as much as Job did would just want it all to end. Yet, God’s will was not death. God’s will was recovery, restoration, and resurrection.

This life is not always fair. There will be times of suffering, and we may at times get so low that we wish for it all to end. One of the messages that this story gives us is that God is always there, and he will not give up on us. We should not give up on ourselves. Death is a curse upon humanity because of sin. When life seems a trap, the way out is not death. It is eternal life, through Christ.

“It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed” (1 Corinthians 15:52 NLT).

LORD, give us the wisdom to seek for your rescue, not sin’s curse.

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when things get worse

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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when things get worse

Job 2:1-13 (JDV)

Job 2:1 One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before Yahveh, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Yahveh.
Job 2:2 Yahveh asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the land,” Satan answered him, “and walking around on it.”
Job 2:3 Then Yahveh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on the land is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited me against him, to destroy him for no good reason.”
Job 2:4 “Skin for skin!” Satan answered Yahveh. “A man will give up everything he owns in exchange for his throat.
Job 2:5 But send out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Job 2:6 “Very well,” Yahveh told Satan, “He is in your power; only spare his throat.”
Job 2:7 So Satan left Yahveh’s presence and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
Job 2:8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself while he sat among the ashes.
Job 2:9 His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Job 2:10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.
Job 2:11 Now when Job’s three friends– Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite– heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.
Job 2:12 When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head.
Job 2:13 Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.

when things get worse

Job’s victory over his circumstances (and the devil behind them) is seen in the fact that God still boasts of his integrity as he did before calamity struck. So, Satan pleads for more control. The LORD gives him authority to touch Job’s body with painful sores. That was only part of the strategy. The other part is the reaction that Job would have to endure of his wife and his “friends.” Most of the story is a description of the reactions of people around Job to the unfairness of Job’s problems compared to his apparent sinlessness. Their conclusion was that Job must have secretly done something to cause his problems. We know, however, that it was not like that.

The seven days of mourning in silence and the dust on the heads are both signs that Job’s friends expected him to die (return to the dust). Anyone who has ever sat with a friend who is dying of a terminal illness knows how they felt. It is a difficult and painful thing to see a friend deteriorate before your eyes. Job was not the only one being tested.

When things went from bad to worse for Job, it was because Satan was losing. Job was a hero of faith because he refused to accept what everybody else believed. He clung to his relationship with God as an anchor.

LORD, help us to forge such a deep relationship with you that though the world turn against us, we can stay true.

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trust remains

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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trust remains

Job 1:1-22 (JDV)

Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz named Job. He was a man of complete integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil.
Job 1:2 He had seven sons and three daughters.
Job 1:3 He also had seven thousand sheep and goats, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man among all the people of the east.
Job 1:4 His sons used to take turns having feasts at their homes. They would send an invitation to their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
Job 1:5 Whenever a round of feasts was over, Job would send for his children and purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. Job thought, “Perhaps my children have failed, having cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.
Job 1:6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahveh, and Satan also came with them.
Job 1:7 Yahveh asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the land,” Satan answered him, “and walking around on it.”
Job 1:8 Then Yahveh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on the land is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
Job 1:9 Satan answered Yahveh, “Does Job fear God for nothing?
Job 1:10 Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
Job 1:11 But send out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Job 1:12 “Very well,” Yahveh told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, do not lay a hand on Job himself.” So, Satan left Yahveh’s presence.
Job 1:13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
Job 1:14 a messenger came to Job and reported: “While the oxen were plowing and the donkeys grazing nearby,
Job 1:15 the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:16 He was still speaking when another messenger came and reported: “God’s fire fell from the sky. It burned the sheep and the servants and devoured them, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:17 That messenger was still speaking when yet another came and reported: “The Chaldeans formed three bands, made a raid on the camels, and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:18 He was still speaking when another messenger came and reported: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house.
Job 1:19 Suddenly a powerful wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people so that they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
Job 1:20 Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped,
Job 1:21 saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. Yahveh gives, and Yahveh takes away. Blessed be the name of Yahveh.
Job 1:22 Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.

trust remains

A major test of a person’s character comes with catastrophe. It brings out the worst in some people, the best in others. Job is one of those people whose pure hearts shines through when struck by darkness all around. His life literally falls apart around him, and he is grieved deeply by it. But his relationship with the LORD remains. For most, God is immediately to blame when disaster strikes. Job sees the disaster as another reason to worship. His trust in the LORD remains, even when things happen that cannot be explained. Behind the scenes there is a reason for the destruction and death. Job does not know that reason. But he still chooses to trust the LORD.

LORD, make us strong in our relationship with you, so that if the times of testing come, we will be found faithful.

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repent or be destroyed

Posted on June 9, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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repent or be destroyed

Luke 13:1-5 (JDV).

Luke 13:1 Now there were some present at that time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
Luke 13:2 He responded to them, “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things?
Luke 13:3 No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all be destroyed as well!
Luke 13:4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse violators than all the others who live in Jerusalem?
Luke 13:5 No, I tell you! But unless you repent you will all be destroyed as well!”

repent or be destroyed

Luke records a time when Jesus was talking to some people about two horrible events: a massacre by Pilate of some Galileans and a disaster in Jerusalem when a tower fell on some bystanders.

If you are ever in a disaster situation like that, it makes you think. You naturally begin to question why it happened. You might even wonder about the victims. You might wonder what they had done to deserve such a tragedy happening to them. But Jesus urged his listeners to think about something else. He urged them to realize that we all deserve that fate.

Repentance and faith in the gospel is our only way out of a similar fate.
Our history might lead us to bring up some other disaster, like 9-1-1, a plane crash, or COVID-19. But Jesus was teaching us that no one escapes the big one. The big one is the second death – destruction in Gehenna. That is the big disaster still looming in the future for everyone… everyone who does not repent. The torpedo is slicing through the sea surface as I speak. No one on board will be safe when it hits. That is why the news about the lifeboat is good news.

The Bible says that “this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). Those are the two options. Either repent and believe in Christ or perish in the big one when it comes.
I want to share a quote here from a very old book. The author is John Oswald Jackson.

“This is for you, if unsaved, THE great question; all others fall beside it into the shade. Compared with this, all domestic, commercial, political questions are as the small dust of the balance; they are but as drops to the ocean; in a word, they are for time, this for ETERNITY!! And let me in fidelity say, that if you are conscious that you have not yet experienced this repentance, you are in the most perilous condition imaginable. However amiable and learned; however rich and refined; or however poor and despised; what ever may be your inward disposition or outward character; your internal feelings or external circumstances; still, unless you have repented, the God of truth and tenderness declares solemnly you must perish!”

(John Oswald Jackson, Repentance: or The Change of Mind Necessary to Salvation Considered. 1845, p. 7.)

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joy in the sky

Posted on June 8, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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joy in the sky

Luke 15:7 I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in the sky over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.

joy in the sky

Maybe you think you can take your chances on being one of the ninety-nine who does not need to repent. I would not. If you have never repented, I can guarantee you that you are not one of the ninety-nine.
Besides, the real question for all of us is this: do we want to bring joy to our sky Father? If we do, Jesus told us that we can do that by repenting.

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the gospel demands a response

Posted on June 7, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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the gospel demands a response

Mark 1:14 But after John was arrested Jesus came back into Galilee, preaching that excellent message from God.
Mark 1:15 And saying that “the time is fulfilled,” and “the kingdom from God has come near, repent and believe in that excellent message.”

the gospel demands a response

What Mark referred to as the excellent message (gospel) is the whole story of how God has intervened in the history of humanity by sending his Son to be our king. As our king, Jesus will renew all creation, destroying all evil and removing sin from the earth. But we cannot be passive about this news.
The gospel is not good news because it promises that everything is going to come out alright. Jesus’ words to us were not “let it be.” No, the gospel is good news because the ship we are on is going to be torpedoed – but we have the chance to get off it and get into a lifeboat before it happens. If we choose to do nothing, we will go down with the ship!

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we are commanded to repent

Posted on June 6, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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we are commanded to repent

Mark 1:14-15 (JDV).

Mark 1:14 But after John was arrested Jesus came back into Galilee, preaching that excellent message from God.
Mark 1:15 And saying that “the time is fulfilled,” and “the kingdom from God has come near, repent and believe in that excellent message.”

When Jesus started proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, he was declaring that he had been appointed King of that kingdom. When he next said “Repent and believe the gospel!” he was commanding all of his subjects to do something. The form of the word (μετανοεῖτε) is a grammatical imperative. He did not give anyone an option. He did not say that the gospel was one of the paths to God that a person could take.
He did not add a condition to his command. If he had said “if the world will let you, repent” then perhaps that would have excluded some people. Many who have repented and turned to faith in the gospel have paid for that choice with their lives. Their political and religious leaders demanded that they reject Christ. But their king did not put an exclusion clause in his command. Jesus commanded them to repent, and so they did.
Many have had to renounce their own families to obey the command from their king. They knew that Jesus did not say “if your family will let you, repent.” His command came with no conditions.

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restitution and exaltation

Posted on June 5, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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restitution and exaltation

Isaiah 53:10-12 (JDV).

Isaiah 53:10 But Yahveh was pleased to crush him; he made him weak. If anyone accepts his life as a guilt offering, he will have a future. He will extend his days, and the will of Yahveh will succeed in his hand.
Isaiah 53:11 He will see into the trouble of his soul, and he will be satisfied. My righteous servant will declare many of those he knows righteous, and he is the one who will bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:12 For this reason, I will divide to him a portion among the great, and with strong ones he will divide bounty, because he poured his life out to death and was counted with transgressors; yet he was the one who bore the sin of many and will intercede for the transgressors.

restitution and exaltation

Isaiah predicts a victory that assumes two things. First, he predicts that the suffering servant will accomplish restitution.

But verse 10 says something that is not quite made clear in the NET translation. The phrase “once restitution is made” is actually im tasim asam nafsho in Hebrew. The WEB (World English Bible) translates that phrase more literally, “When you make his soul an offering for sin.” Christ’s whole being died, not just his body. He did not appear to die. He died — completely. When Jesus said “it is finished” that is what was finished. He accomplished the purpose for which he came into the world. That is the first part of the victory. His resurrection was the proof of this accomplishment.

The second thing that Isaiah predicts is a profound exaltation. Isaiah says the Messaiah “will see descendants and enjoy long life” which is a bit of understatement. All of the saved of all time will enjoy eternal life with him — as a result of his victory for them. With victory will also come the spoils of victory. Ultimately, the prophet is talking about eternity in the new universe. The king of kings and lord of lords is going to take his throne. Under him will be every other king and every other lord. He will have gone from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high.

The Servant shall be high and lifted up and exalted.

Isaiah 52:13 “Look, my servant will succeed! He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted.”

But first he will be despised and rejected by men.

Kings will be shocked by his exaltation (52:15).

But first he must go to the cross with his own mouth shut, like a lamb led to the slaughter (53:7).

He will know eternal life and prosperity , but first he must allow God’s will to happen, which means he will be crushed (53:10). He will make many to be accounted righteous (53:11), but first he must pour out his soul to death, and be numbered with the transgressors (53:12).

Who would have believed such a thing? This was God’s plan. Yet there is something still more unbelievable. God has done all this for us through Christ, yet there are still people who say they don’t believe. There are still some who refuse to put their faith in Christ.

Repentance is half of the foundation. Faith is the other half. We must turn to God, ready to tell him all the things we have done against him. But then we must also turn to God in faith.

LORD, thank you for the ultimate sacrifice: infinite purity made into a sin offering to rescue us from our own defilement. We choose to believe in Jesus Christ the one you sent.

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