karma

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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karma

Job 20:1-29 (JDV)

Job 20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
Job 20:2 This is why my disquieting thoughts compel me to answer, because I am upset!
Job 20:3 I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my insight makes me reply.
Job 20:4 Don’t you know that ever since antiquity, from the time a human was placed on the land,
Job 20:5 the joy of the wicked has been brief and the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment?
Job 20:6 Though his arrogance reaches the sky, and his head touches the clouds,
Job 20:7 he will vanish forever like his own dung. Those who know him will ask, “Where is he?”
Job 20:8 He will fly away like a dream and never be found; he will be chased away like a vision in the night.
Job 20:9 The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer see him.
Job 20:10 His children will beg from the poor, because his own hands must give back his wealth.
Job 20:11 His frame might be full of youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in dust.
Job 20:12 Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,
Job 20:13 though he cherishes it and will not let it go but keeps it in his mouth,
Job 20:14 yet the food in his stomach turns into cobras’ venom inside him.
Job 20:15 He swallows wealth but must vomit it up; God will force it from his stomach.
Job 20:16 He will suck the poison of cobras; a viper’s fangs will kill him.
Job 20:17 He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and curds.
Job 20:18 He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he doesn’t enjoy the profits from his trading.
Job 20:19 For he oppressed and abandoned the poor; he seized a house he did not build.
Job 20:20 Because his appetite is never satisfied, he does not let anything he desires escape.
Job 20:21 Nothing is left for him to consume; therefore, his prosperity will not last.
Job 20:22 At the height of his success distress will come to him; the full weight of misery will crush him.
Job 20:23 When he fills his stomach, God will send his burning anger against him, raining it down on him while he is eating.
Job 20:24 If he flees from an iron weapon, an arrow from a bronze bow will pierce him.
Job 20:25 He pulls it out of his back, the flashing tip out of his liver. Terrors come over him.
Job 20:26 Total darkness is reserved for his treasures. A fire unfanned by human hands will consume him; it will feed on what is left in his tent.
Job 20:27 The sky will expose his iniquity, and the ground will revolt against him.
Job 20:28 The possessions in his house will be removed, flowing away on the day of God’s anger.
Job 20:29 This is the wicked person’s due from God, the inheritance God ordained for him.

karma

Zophar argues that reversal of fortune is always God’s doing.

Those who are exalted (6) he brings down to the depths.
Those experiencing sweetness (12) he poisons.
The full he devours (22,26).


A world in which our condition is always the result of our past actions is comforting to the rich, and sometimes the poor prefer it as well, because it challenges them to take command of their own destiny. No one is comfortable being a pawn in the game of life. But the book of Job reminds us that there are more players than just ourselves. Sometimes our best efforts are trumped by those with better hands. In the end, the purpose of the game is not to win. It is to walk away still being friends with all the players. Job knew that. His therapists did not.

LORD, no matter what happens to us, help us to hold on to our relationship with you.

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my eyes will look at him

Posted on June 28, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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my eyes will look at him

Job 19:1-29 (JDV)

Job 19:1 Then Job answered and said:
Job 19:2 Until when will you torment me and crush me with words?
Job 19:3 You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame.
Job 19:4 Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me.
Job 19:5 If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,
Job 19:6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net.
Job 19:7 I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice.
Job 19:8 He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; he has veiled my paths with darkness.
Job 19:9 He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
Job 19:10 He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree.
Job 19:11 His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies.
Job 19:12 His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent.
Job 19:13 He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.
Job 19:14 My kin stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me.
Job 19:15 My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.
Job 19:16 I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth.
Job 19:17 My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive.
Job 19:18 Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me.
Job 19:19 All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.
Job 19:20 My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.
Job 19:21 Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me.
Job 19:22 Why do you pursue me as God has? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
Job 19:23 I wish that my words were written down, that they were recorded on a scroll
Job 19:24 or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead!
Job 19:25 But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust.
Job 19:26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God from my flesh.
Job 19:27 I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.
Job 19:28 If you are saying, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?”
Job 19:29 then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.

my eyes will look at him

Moses, describing the creation of Adam, says that God formed him or “of dust from the ground.” (Gen. 2:7). The good news of the resurrection is described by Job using the same term that details what we are made of. Job proclaims “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” But that word “earth” is not the word used in Genesis 1:1. It is the same word translated dust in Genesis 2:7. The dust that the Messiah will stand on at the last day will be the dust of Job’s body. But then something amazing happens. Job continues “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes shall see and not another.” The Messiah stands over the dust of Job’s dead body and brings it back to life!

This is the hope that the Bible gives humanity. It is not survival after death but rescue from death. It is not being “found naked” (without a body) in the intermediate state but being “further clothed” with a resurrection body. The Bible says that when Jesus Christ returns “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” The nature of that change is made clear as well: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” We are dust: that is what we are made of, but our destiny is to be more.

LORD, thank you for the hope of resurrection.

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cheering Bildad

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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cheering Bildad

Job 18:1-21 (JDV)

Job 18:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
Job 18:2 Until when will you stop talking? Show some sense, and then we can talk.
Job 18:3 Why are we regarded as cattle, as stupid in your sight?
Job 18:4 You who tear your throat in anger — should the ground be abandoned on your account, or a rock be removed from its place?
Job 18:5 Yes, the light of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.
Job 18:6 The light in his tent grows dark, and the lamp beside him is put out.
Job 18:7 His powerful stride is shortened, and his own schemes trip him up.
Job 18:8 Because his own feet lead him into a net, and he strays into its mesh.
Job 18:9 A trap catches him by the heel; a noose seizes him.
Job 18:10 A rope lies hidden for him on the ground, and a snare waits for him along the path.
Job 18:11 Terrors frighten him on every side and harass him at every step.
Job 18:12 His strength is depleted; disaster lies ready for him to stumble.
Job 18:13 Layers of his skin are eaten away; death’s beginning consumes his limbs.
Job 18:14 He is ripped from the security of his tent and marched away to the king of terrors.
Job 18:15 Nothing he owned remains in his tent. Burning sulfur is scattered over his home.
Job 18:16 His roots below dry up, and his branches above wither away.
Job 18:17 All memory of him is be destroyed from the ground; he has no name anywhere.
Job 18:18 He is pushed from light to darkness and chased from the inhabited world.
Job 18:19 He has no children or descendants among his people, no survivor where he used to live.
Job 18:20 Those in the west are appalled at his fate, while those in the east tremble in horror.
Job 18:21 Surely such is the dwelling of the unjust man, and this is the place of the one who does not know God.

cheering Bildad

Bildad is irritated with Job’s insistence that he is suffering innocently. To Bildad, Job is a loser. He has lost both house and household: everything that he could rely on. Bildad’s worldview has only one answer for such tragedy. It has to be the judgment of God. If you and I did not have access to the secret information shared earlier in this book, we would probably be cheering Bildad on. Can we learn from this ancient book? Can we dare to look beyond the obvious and have compassion on the losers we know?

LORD, give us the compassion to stop branding people, and actually help the needy.

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A graveyard awaits

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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A graveyard awaits

Job 17:1-16 (JDV)

Job 17:1 My breath is disturbed. My days are extinguished. A graveyard awaits me.
Job 17:2 Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.
Job 17:3 Accept my pledge! Put up security for me. Who else will be my sponsor?
therefore,You have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not honor them.
Job 17:5 If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.
Job 17:6 He has made me an object of scorn to the people; I have become a face people spit at.
Job 17:7 My eyes have grown dim from aggravation, and my whole body has become but a shadow.
Job 17:8 The upright is appalled at this, and the innocent are roused against the godless.
Job 17:9 Yet the righteous person will hold to his way, and the one whose hands are clean will grow stronger.
Job 17:10 But come back and try again, all of you. I will not find a wise man among you.
Job 17:11 My days have slipped by; my plans have been torn up, even the things dear to my heart.
Job 17:12 They turned night into day and made light seem near in the face of darkness.
Job 17:13 If I await Sheol as my home, spread out my bed in darkness,
Job 17:14 and say to rot, “You are my father,” and to the maggot, “My mother” or “My sister,”
Job 17:15 where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?
Job 17:16 Will it go down to the gates of Sheol, or will we descend together to the dust?

A graveyard awaits

Job did not anticipate an answer to his problem in death. He would not be vindicated at death. A graveyard awaited him, and he did not find his hope there. His hope (we will discover in chapter 19) is a resurrection.

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hope in the LORD

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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hope in the LORD

Job 16:1-22 (JDV)

Job 16:1 Then Job answered and said:
Job 16:2 I have heard many things like these. You are all working hard to comfort me.
Job 16:3 Is there no end to your windy words? What provokes you that you continue answering?
Job 16:4 I could also talk like you if you were in my place, I could string words together against you and shake my head at you.
Job 16:5 Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.
Job 16:6 If I speak, my suffering is not relieved, and if I hold back, does any of it leave me?
Job 16:7 Surely, he has now exhausted me. You have devastated my entire family.
Job 16:8 You have shrivelled me up — it has become a witness; my frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.
Job 16:9 His anger tears at me, and he harasses me. He gnashes his teeth at me. My enemy pierces me with his eyes.
Job 16:10 They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join themselves together against me.
Job 16:11 God hands me over to the unjust; he throws me to the wicked.
Job 16:12 I was at ease, but he shattered me; he seized me by the scruff of the neck and smashed me to pieces. He set me up as his target;
Job 16:13 his archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and pours my bile on the ground.
Job 16:14 He breaks through my defences again and again; he charges at me like a warrior.
Job 16:15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.
Job 16:16 My face has grown red with weeping, and darkness covers my eyes,
Job 16:17 although my hands are free from violence and my prayer is pure.
Job 16:18 Ground, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help find no resting place.
Job 16:19 Even now my witness is in the sky, and my advocate is in the heights!
Job 16:20 My friends scoff at me as I weep before God.
Job 16:21 I wish that a healthy man might argue with God just as any son of Adam would for a friend.
Job 16:22 For only a few years will pass before I go the way of no return.

Job knew that he was going to die. If he did not die of his present illness, at least in a few years he would succumb to the inevitable (Job 16:22). So, he asks a very important question, a question that much of the world still gets wrong. He asks where his hope is. Is it in death? No, death is going to Sheol and darkness and decay (the worm). Death is not Job’s hope. Job’s hope is the LORD.

Martha told Jesus that she knew her dead brother would rise on resurrection day.

“Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”” John 11:24

Jesus told Martha that he would be the one to raise Lazarus (and every other believer)from the dead on that day:

“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.1 Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”” John 11:25-26

Job, by faith looked beyond the reality of his own death, and held to a hope in God. He did not know Jesus’ name, but he trusted him just the same.

LORD, give us the wisdom to – like Job –put our hope not in death, but in your resurrection.

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what Job knew

Posted on June 24, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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what Job knew

Job 15:1-35 (JDV)

Job 15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
Job 15:2 Does a wise person answer with empty counsel or fill himself with the hot east wind?
Job 15:3 Should he argue with useless talk or with words that serve no purpose?
Job 15:4 But you even frustrate the fear of God and hinder meditation before him.
Job 15:5 Your iniquity teaches you what to say, and you choose the language of the crafty.
Job 15:6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I; your own lips testify against you.
Job 15:7 Were you the first of Adam ever born, or were you brought forth before the hills?
Job 15:8 Do you listen in on the council of God, or have a monopoly on wisdom?
Job 15:9 What do you know that we don’t? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
Job 15:10 Both the gray-haired and the elderly are with us — older than your father.
Job 15:11 Are God’s comforts not enough for you, or the words that deal gently with you?
Job 15:12 Why has your heart misled you, and why do your eyes flash
Job 15:13 as you turn your breath against God and allow such words to leave your mouth?
Job 15:14 What is a mere mortal, that he should be pure, or one born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
Job 15:15 If God puts no trust in his holy ones and the sky is not pure in his sight,
Job 15:16 how much less one who is revolting and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?
Job 15:17 Listen to me and I will inform you. I will describe what I have seen,
Job 15:18 what the wise have declared and not concealed, that came from their ancestors,
Job 15:19 to whom alone the land was given when no stranger passed among them.
Job 15:20 A wicked person writhes in pain all his days, throughout the number of years reserved for the ruthless.
Job 15:21 Dreadful sounds fill his ears; when he is at peace, a robber attacks him.
Job 15:22 He doesn’t believe he will return from darkness; he is destined for the sword.
Job 15:23 He wanders about for food, asking, “Where is it?” He knows the day of darkness is at hand.
Job 15:24 Trouble and distress terrify him, overwhelming him like a king prepared for battle.
Job 15:25 For he has sent out his hand against God and has arrogantly opposed the Almighty.
Job 15:26 He rushes headlong at him with his thick, studded shields.
Job 15:27 Though his face is covered with fat and his waistline bulges with it,
Job 15:28 he will dwell in ruined cities, in abandoned houses destined to become piles of rubble.
Job 15:29 He will no longer be rich; his wealth will not endure. His crops will not spread over the ground.
Job 15:30 He will not escape from the darkness; flames will burn up his shoots, and by the breath of God’s mouth, he will depart.
Job 15:31 Let him not put trust in worthless things, being led astray, because what he gets in exchange will prove worthless.
Job 15:32 It will be accomplished before his time, and his branch will not flourish.
Job 15:33 He will be like a vine that drops its unripe grapes and like an olive tree that sheds its blossoms.
Job 15:34 Because the company of the godless will have no children, and fire will consume the tents of those who offer bribes.
Job 15:35 They conceive trouble and give birth to evil; their womb prepares deception.

what Job knew

Eliphaz’ question in verse 9 was a good one – if only he had not meant it as a rhetorical device. Job did have access to a kind of knowledge that his three “comforters” did not. Job trusted in his creator. Job was not sinless. He admitted that he had sinned in his youth, and that God was not holding him accountable for those sins. He knew forgiveness. A person can endure much suffering and still stay true to God if that person has a relationship with God based on grace. Do you know Job’s secret? Do you know God’s forgiveness?

LORD, give us the wisdom to trust you, and to rely upon your grace.

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not trees

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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not trees

Job 14:1-22 (JDV)

Job 14:1 A human born of woman is short of days and full of trouble.
Job 14:2 He blossoms like a flower then withers; he flees like a shadow and does not last.
Job 14:3 Do open your eye to one like this? Will you bring me into judgment against you?
Job 14:4 Who can produce something pure from what is impure? No one!
Job 14:5 Since a person’s days are determined and the number of his months depends on you, and since you have set limits he cannot pass,
Job 14:6 look away from him and let him rest so that he can enjoy his day like a hired worker.
Job 14:7 There is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its shoots will not die.
Job 14:8 If its roots grow old in the ground and its stump starts to die in the soil,
Job 14:9 the scent of water makes it thrive and produce twigs like a sapling.
Job 14:10 But a healthy man dies and fades away; Adam expires – and where is he?
Job 14:11 As water disappears from a lake and a river becomes parched and dry,
Job 14:12 so a man lies down never to rise again. He will not wake up until the sky is no more; they will not stir from their sleep.
Job 14:13 If only you would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until your anger passes. If only you would appoint a time for me and then remember me.
Job 14:14 If a healthy man dies, will he come back to life? If so, I would wait all the days of my struggle until my relief comes.
Job 14:15 You would call, and I would answer you. You would long for the work of your hands.
Job 14:16 For then you would count my steps but would not take note of my sin.
Job 14:17 My rebellion would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.
Job 14:18 But as a mountain collapses and crumbles and a rock is dislodged from its place,
Job 14:19 as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the topsoil from the ground, so you destroy a mortal’s hope.
Job 14:20 You completely overpower him, and he goes away; you change his appearance and send him away.
Job 14:21 If his sons receive honor, he does not know it; if they become insignificant, he is unaware of it.
Job 14:22 He feels only the pain of his own body and mourns only for his throat.

not trees

Job laments that human beings are not like trees. A tree may be cut down, but given the right conditions, it may sprout back again from the apparently dead stump. But, Job complains, human beings are not like that. When a man’s life comes to an end, he lies down and sleeps, not to wake up again.

Job is not arguing against the concept of the resurrection. Even in this chapter, he pleads with God to hide him in Sheol (death) until his wrath is past, and then remember him, causing him to live again (13-14). One cannot ask for a more clear statement of the hope of resurrection. Later, Job asserts that he has a Redeemer who lives, and that he (Job) will see God in a resurrected body, long after his present body has been consumed.

So, since Job is not arguing against the notion of a resurrection, why does he insist that death is a sleep that one does not wake up from? He is contrasting the fate of humans with that of trees. Trees have something within their nature that allows them to bounce back from apparent death. God has not put such a nature within us. If we want to live again, we will need a resurrecting God. Sleep is an appropriate metaphor for death because if you see people sleeping, you expect them to wake up. Think about that the next time you walk through a cemetery. These “sleeping places” are monuments to the fact that we all depend upon God for our future life.

LORD, thank you for the hope of the resurrection.

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proverbs of ash

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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proverbs of ash

Job 13:1-28 (JDV)

Job 13:1 Note, my eyes have seen all this; my ears have heard and understood it.
Job 13:2 Everything you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.
Job 13:3 Yet I prefer to speak to the Almighty and argue my case before God.
Job 13:4 You use lies like plaster; you are all worthless doctors.
Job 13:5 If only you would shut up and let that be your wisdom!
Job 13:6 Hear now my argument and listen to my defense.
Job 13:7 Should you keep testifying unjustly on God’s behalf or speaking deceitfully for him?
Job 13:8 Should you show partiality to him or argue the case in his defense?
Job 13:9 Would it go well if he examined you? Could you deceive him as you would deceive a mortal?
Job 13:10 Surely, he would rebuke you if you secretly showed partiality.
Job 13:11 Would God’s majesty not terrify you? Would his dread not fall on you?
Job 13:12 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ash; your defences are made of clay.
Job 13:13 Be quiet, and I will speak. Let whatever comes happen to me.
Job 13:14 I will put my flesh in my teeth and take my throat in my own hands.
Job 13:15 Even if he kills me, I will put my hope in him. I will still defend my ways before him.
Job 13:16 Yes, this will result in my deliverance, for no godless person can appear before him.
Job 13:17 Pay close attention to my words; let my declaration ring in your ears.
Job 13:18 Now then, I have prepared my case; I know that I am right.
Job 13:19 Can anyone indict me? If so, I will be silent and die.
Job 13:20 Only grant these two things to me, God, so that I will not have to hide from your presence:
Job 13:21 remove your hand from me, and do not let your terror frighten me.
Job 13:22 Then call, and I will answer, or I will speak, and you can respond to me.
Job 13:23 How many iniquities and sins have I committed? Reveal to me my transgression and sin.
Job 13:24 Why are you hiding your face and considering me your enemy?
Job 13:25 Will you frighten a wind-driven leaf? Will you chase after dry straw?
Job 13:26 Because you record bitter accusations against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.
Job 13:27 You put my feet in the stocks and stand watch over all my paths, setting a limit for the soles of my feet.
Job 13:28 And he wears out like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.

proverbs of ash

Job told his attending friends that their maxims were proverbs of ash. They look good on paper, but that is all they are good for. Reality is seldom as simple as a choice between a and b. Reality jumps up and confronts our preconceived principles. Job was a reminder to the world that conventional wisdom does not always work. God is sovereign, and he is free to perform miracles or withhold them. He does not work on our schedule.

LORD, forgive us for our simple expectations. Teach us to trust you when we cannot figure you out.

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dishonored

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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dishonored

Job 12:1-25 (JDV)

Job 12:1 Then Job answered and said:
Job 12:2 Truly you are the people, and wisdom will die with you!
Job 12:3 But I also have a heart like you; I am not inferior to you. Who doesn’t know the things you refer to?
Job 12:4 I am a laughingstock to my friends, by calling on God, who answers me. The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock.
Job 12:5 The one who is at ease holds calamity in contempt and thinks it is prepared for those whose feet are slipping.
Job 12:6 The tents of robbers are safe, and those who trouble God are secure; God holds them in his hands.
Job 12:7 But ask the animals, and they will instruct you; ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
Job 12:8 Or speak to the land, and it will instruct you; let the fish of the sea inform you.
Job 12:9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of Yahveh has done this?
Job 12:10 The throat of every living thing is in his hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:11 Doesn’t the ear test words as the palate tastes food?
Job 12:12 Wisdom is found with the elderly, and understanding comes with long life.
Job 12:13 Wisdom and strength belong to God; counsel and understanding are his.
Job 12:14 Whatever he tears down cannot be rebuilt; whoever he imprisons cannot be released.
Job 12:15 When he withholds water, everything dries up, and when he releases it, it overturns the ground.
Job 12:16 True wisdom and power belong to him. The deceived and the deceiver are his.
Job 12:17 He leads counselors away barefoot and makes judges go mad.
Job 12:18 He releases the bonds put on by kings and fastens a belt around their waists.
Job 12:19 He leads priests away barefoot, and overthrows established leaders.
Job 12:20 He deprives trusted advisers of speech and takes away the elders’ good judgment.
Job 12:21 He pours out contempt on nobles and disarms the strong.
Job 12:22 He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deepest darkness into the light.
Job 12:23 He makes nations great, then destroys them; he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
Job 12:24 He deprives the land’s leaders of reason and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
Job 12:25 They grope around in darkness without light; he makes them stagger like a drunk.

dishonored

Job reminds his friends that he had been known as a wise man too, before his calamity came. His response to their insistence that he repent for the sin that obviously brought this disaster upon himself is to remind them that ultimately God does what he wishes, and no king, man, or animal can stop him. God is sovereign. Nothing that he does is unfair, for the universe is his. For now, Job has been removed from the honor that was once his as a wise man. That does not mean he has lost his wisdom. Job is down and out. Our temptation is to ignore and deplore those who have met misfortune. We should not yield to that temptation.

LORD, give us the discernment to listen to your voice, no matter whose mouth it is coming from.

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beyond ignorance

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Jefferson Vann

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beyond ignorance

Job 11:1-20 (JDV)

Job 11:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
Job 11:2 Should so many words go unanswered and such lips be acquitted?
Job 11:3 Should your babbling put others to silence, so that you can keep on ridiculing with no one to shame you?
Job 11:4 You have said, “My teaching is sound, and I am pure in your sight.”
Job 11:5 But if only God would speak and open his lips against you!
Job 11:6 He would show you the secrets of wisdom, because true wisdom has two sides. Know then that God has chosen to overlook some of your iniquity.
Job 11:7 Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?
Job 11:8 They are higher than the sky — what can you do? They are deeper than Sheol — what can you know?
Job 11:9 Their measure is longer than the ground and wider than the sea.
Job 11:10 If he passes by and throws someone in prison or convenes a court, who can stop him?
Job 11:11 Surely, he knows which people are worthless. If he sees iniquity, will he not take note of it?
Job 11:12 But a stupid person will gain understanding as soon as a wild donkey is born a human!
Job 11:13 As for you, if you redirect your heart and spread out your hands to him in prayer —
Job 11:14 if there is iniquity in your hand, remove it, and don’t allow injustice to dwell in your tents —
Job 11:15 then you will hold your head high, free from fault. You will be firmly established and unafraid.
Job 11:16 Because you will forget your suffering, recalling it only as water that has flowed by.
Job 11:17 Your lifetime will be brighter than noonday; its darkness will be like the morning.
Job 11:18 You will be confident, because there is hope. You will look carefully around and lie down in safety.
Job 11:19 You will lie down with no one to frighten you, and many will seek your favor.
Job 11:20 But the eyes of the wicked will fail. Their way of escape will be destroyed, and their only hope is a breathing throat.

beyond ignorance

Zophar is guilty of only seeing what has happened to Job and assuming that it proved that Job has acted foolishly and brought this tragedy upon himself. He urges Job to repent. Job lived in ignorant times, and there was a lot about God and his plan that Job did not know. But he knew God, and had a relationship with him. God’s grace reached beyond Job’s ignorance and touched him. His sickness, and all the “bad luck” that he had did not change that relationship. Zophar did not see things correctly because he failed to see Job from God’s eyes. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

LORD, give us insight into the hearts of people. Help us to see them as you do.

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