Category: Uncategorized

Job 16:5-6 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief. Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

Job calls his friends “miserable comforters,” They were supposed to be comforting him in his grief. Instead, they condemned him for causing his own suffering. If the shoe were on the other foot, Job would strengthen them and assuage their grief. But their response to his grief is just the opposite of comfort. But he, whether he speaks or is silent, is not assuaged or eased.

Job gives hints about being a better comforter: 1) don’t just talk for the sake of talking, 2) don’t sermonize by giving pat answers, 3) don’t accuse or criticize, 4) put yourself in the other person’s place, and 5) offer help and encouragement.

Our response to the suffering of others, and our own suffering, can strengthen and assuage with the Gospel. We need the assurance of the mercies of God (the blood of Jesus) through the comfort of the Gospel. Encouragement and strengthening comes through the reassurance that God still loves us because of Christ.

Speaking the gospel, not the law, gives comforting hope and assuages grief. We need to hear and speak the words of God’s love as often as possible. God shows His love and sympathy for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Job 15:31, 35

Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for vanity shall be his recompense….They conceive mischief and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.

Deceit and lies come from Satan to keep us away from God. He deceives with a thousand lies to make us believe vanities. Vanity is emptiness, futility, transience, a fleeting vapor that does not satisfy. “All is vanity,” says Ecclesiastes. All the things of this world will pass away. Why do we trust in them?

2 Corinthians 4:18: “ We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Unseen things are the things of God, of the Spirit, of heaven, of Truth, of Life. That life is substantive, real, and eternal. Jesus has brought us into that kingdom, where there is truth and not deceit, light and not darkness, life and not death, pleasantness and not pain, eternity and not transience.

God has given us truth, reality, substance, life, and eternity in His Son, who is the Word of God. Faith sees it. Physical eyes see the lies. We have the Word of God, which does not deceive and bring vanity. We are blessed, for we have not seen and yet have believed.

Job 13:5 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

Job’s response in this verse is commendable and true and then at the same time damning and false. He maintains both trust in God and trust in self. He first says in response to God that he will trust Him even if He kills him. This is an amazing statement of faith: whatever God does I will still believe that He is good. He knows what He is doing and He is doing a good and right thing for me, regardless of how it feels to me at the moment. Oh, that we could all be given such faith.

But then he contradicts what he just confessed, by defending his own works and ways. Is he trusting in the Lord alone for goodness and salvation, or is he trusting in himself, that his own works righteousness saves him? And so it is with us, who are at the same time saints and sinners. We are saints who trust Jesus for full salvation, and at the same time we are sinners who defend our own ways. Job wanted an audience with God to accuse Him for treating him unfairly.

Job 8:13 So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish.

Bildad speaks and wrongly assumes that Job was trusting in something other than God for security. He says that such supports are fragile and sure to collapse. People need security and will look for it everywhere but to God. However, our money, possessions, knowledge, and relationships will fail or be gone. Only God can give lasting security.

The principle is true, although the accusation against Job is false. This was not Job’s problem, but it is still true. When we forget or ignore God or put Him on the shelf we are left without anything to give us a sure hope or a secure foundation. Hope for the unbeliever is a vanishing wisp. Our natural response to difficult times and an uncertain future is to trust in something other than God. So in despair or disappointment we are reminded to turn to God for the security we need.

Trust in God is basic for our life and wellbeing. When we are brought to faith in Jesus through the Gospel our faith is increased resulting in love, joy, peace, hope, and security. In a sinful world it is easy to forget God, and that’s why we respond by remembering God and exposing ourselves to reminders. God is here!

Job 7:11 Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Job’s natural response to his intense suffering is to complain. Naturally. Job’s honest reaction is to speak aloud and cry out to God and anyone who will listen. His spirit is in anguish and his soul is bitter.

We also speak out and complain when trouble and pain or loss comes our way. But complaints can be used as a reminder to pray instead. Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God will guard your hearts in Christ Jesus.”

Complain or pray is the choice we have when trouble comes. The choice we make depends on our understanding of our God’s relationship with us. Is He looking at us with Law or with Gospel? Job says God is a watcher or observer. Is He watching us to see if we trip up or make a mistake, or is He watching over us to protect and bless us? If we see a vindictive, judgmental God then we will complain. If we see a loving, forgiving God then we will pray.

Job endured a lot, but through it all he learned his lessons. He repented of his sinful condition and believed God is God and that God is good. The Holy Spirit uses the experiences of life to teach us just that through the Word. The school of experience is a great teacher, but it needs the Word and the Spirit to apply the right view of God to our faith and life. How you see God’s relationship with you determines your response. Does He observe us with critical scrutiny or with compassion? The Gospel tells us the answer.

Job 6:24 Teach me, and I will hold my tongue, cause me to understand wherein I have erred.

Job’s response to his suffering is still a good one: he asks the Lord to teach him and he will shut up and accept it; he asks the Lord to help him understand his sin. He and his friends are still under the false impression that he is being punished for some sin. He was a God-fearing man; what did he do wrong? Job is trying here to maintain his innocence.

At the end of the book God does show up and teach him: God is God and he is the creature, and God is just and good and he is the sinner. He wouldn’t understand God’s ways even if He told him. Just repent and believe. Admit your human condition and trust Me. I know what I am doing, and it is for your good.

God’s goodness, righteousness, and love is powerfully revealed and taught to us in the New Testament story of the Son of God. OT believers are told to trust God and wait. NT believers in Jesus are told the same thing: trust God and wait for His promise to be fulfilled. Jesus is coming again to put all things to rights for those who believe Him.

We too ask to be taught. We want to understand “Why.”. The truth is we have been taught in the Word all we need to know concerning God and His relationship to us. He loves us, and that is enough. “The Bible tells me so.”

Job 6:8-9 Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me; that would let loose his hand and cut me off.

In his grief, Job wanted to respond by giving in, to be freed from his discomfort, and to die. But God had a greater plan for his life. His trouble and grief were so great that he thought death would be a relief.

At times we can have a similar tendency, to want to give up and get out when the going gets rough. To trust God during the difficult times tests us to our limits and exercises our faith. In our struggles, large or small, we need to trust that God is in control and that He will take care of us. Romans 8:28: “For those who love God all things work together for good.”

We may not have a death wish, but we do feel like giving up and getting out from under in tough times. When our faith is tested we are strengthened, and we come out stronger than before. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen [Hebrews 11:1].” Job’s end was better than his beginning, but he could not see it. He had to believe. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Through the Gospel we believe. Hang on to your God-given faith, learn the lessons, and be blessed.

Job 5:17-18 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.

Although Eliphaz was wrong in his assumption that God was doing the chastening to punish some sin, he spoke a basic truth: respond with happiness, count it all joy, when you are under the discipline of the Lord. Hebrews 11:6: “The Lord disciplines the one he loves.” The devil did the dirty work, but God allowed him.

We can rejoice, thank God, and count it joy when we suffer physical, emotional, and relational ills. For the Lord is always there, and He has a purpose in it all, and He will bind up the sore and make whole the wounded. When He goes with us through the experiences of life the end result will be better than it was before. God knows what He’ doing and He sees the end.

Because we believe that God is always good, therefore we can be happy when God corrects. Because of the Gospel of Christ, we can believe that He works out all things together for good.

Job 5:8 I would seek unto God, and unto him would I commit my cause.

The advice of Eliphaz, Job’s friend, may be flawed, but in this instance he advises a good, helpful, and true response to the troubles of life in a sinful world (v, 7: “Man is born unto trouble.”) In the midst of troubles we may seek God with us and find the help we need when in need. We may commit our cause, our problem, our hope, and our life unto Him.

However, truth be told, we often seek other things for good instead of God first. “What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” We can use troubles to remind us to turn to the Lord and seek Him and commit them to the Lord. Troubles are a fact of life, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the stronger truth. In weakness, humility, sorrow, pain, and trouble Jesus secured victory for us. Then in life power He conquered trouble and rose from the dead to give us His life. We, too, will be redeemed from trouble and resurrected to a new life. Therefore, we may confidently commit our cause to the Lord.

Job 4:17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker.

Although Eliphaz does not speak for God and he offers his own opinions, here he has touched on a basic truth and a major theme of the book. God is God, Lord, and Creator, and we are not. God is just and pure, and He always knows what He is doing, and what He is doing is always good. This is our sinful response to a just and good God: to think that we know better than God and that we would do things better. In pride and unbelief, we blame God, and accuse Him of being unfair, when it is we who are not just and do not know everything.

This kind of sinful pride, wanting to be God, was the downfall of Satan, and subsequently of Adam, and of us. The Gospel is the power of God to change our attitude and our response. We respond with submissive trust in our Lord and our God as our almighty and all-wise Creator and as our kind and loving Father. We know we can trust Him, for He already died for us. Therefore, we can pray, “Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done.” We need this prayer, for without the Spirit of God it is impossible to surrender our stubborn and selfish will to God’s perfect and loving will. Do we believe God will work it out for good, or do we think we are more just and more pure?