Have You Considered Job?

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Then Job spoke again:  “I have heard all this before.  What miserable comforters you are!  Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?  What makes you keep on talking?  I could say the same things if you were in my place.  I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.  But if it were me, I would encourage you.  I would try to take away your grief.  Instead, I suffer if I defend myself, and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.  “O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.  As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.  My gaunt flesh testifies against me.  God hates me and angrily tears me apart.  He snaps his teeth at me and pierces me with his eyes.  People jeer and laugh at me.  They slap my cheek in contempt.  A mob gathers against me.  God has handed me over to sinners.  He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.  “I was living quietly until he shattered me.  He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.  He set me up as his target, and now his archers surround me.  His arrows pierce me without mercy.  The ground is wet with my blood.  Again and again he smashes against me, charging at me like a warrior.  I wear burlap to show my grief.  My pride lies in the dust.  My eyes are red with weeping; dark shadows circle my eyes.  Yet I have done no wrong, and my prayer is pure.  “O earth, do not conceal my blood.  Let it cry out on my behalf.  Even now my witness is in heaven.  My advocate is there on high.  My friends scorn me, but I pour out my tears to God.  I need someone to mediate between God and me, as a person mediates between friends.  Job 16:1-21

There is so much pathos and meaning of life in the Book of Job, it could hardly be exhausted in months of study; perhaps years; maybe only when, in Heaven, we have One who can unveil for us the depth of Job’s sorrow, confusion, and grief. 

This chapter is the fifth time Job answers his friends.  They have been trying to get their suffering friend to see how he must have sinned really-big, and really-dark to get God that ticked-off.  Job’s children were all dead, his riches gone, his livestock and goods carried off by robbers and thieves.  The icing on the cake is painful boils covering Job’s body, and his wife has suggested suicide would be better. 

Most studies of Job focus on this calamity of a good man suffering utter loss.  And there’s nothing wrong with picking it apart in the search for meaning, purpose, and order in human existence.  God created us with a brain to figure these things out!  But there is one connection we must never miss.  Given the total unravelling of a good man’s life, what can we say about God’s purpose in allowing all that?  Simply put, all of what happened to Job helps us understand life’s rain, good or horrible, falls on the just and the unjust, and is an example, which Paul writes in   1 Corinthians 10[1] that leads to Job’s conclusion:

I need someone to mediate between God and me, as a person mediates between friends.  Job 16:1-21

Job was hurting, and he knew God permitted everything that happened to him.  He knew, as good a life as he’d led, and as holy as he tried to be, his efforts just weren’t enough.  Whatever troubles anyone on earth could experience, Job was not exempt; he needed a mediator, an advocate to plead his case before God.

My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.  1 John 2:1

For You Today 

You may be on the verge of following Mrs. Job’s advice to her husband, or maybe you’ve suffered little in life…yet!  Whether you are there now, and down to your last shred of hope, or leading a joy-filled, even carefree life, remember this, and count on it…you do have someone who will love you.  His name is Jesus.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com  

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[1] Read 1 Corinthians 10

Reeds in the River

 

Friday, February 12, 2021

At that time Jeroboam’s son Abijah became very sick.  So Jeroboam told his wife, “Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you as my wife.  Then go to the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh—the man who told me I would become king.  Take him a gift of ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and ask him what will happen to the boy.”  So Jeroboam’s wife went to Ahijah’s home at Shiloh.  He was an old man now and could no longer see.  But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife will come here, pretending to be someone else. She will ask you about her son, for he is very sick.  Give her the answer I give you.”  So when Ahijah heard her footsteps at the door, he called out, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam!  Why are you pretending to be someone else?”  Then he told her, “I have bad news for you.  Give your husband, Jeroboam, this message from the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘I promoted you from the ranks of the common people and made you ruler over my people Israel.  I ripped the kingdom away from the family of David and gave it to you.  But you have not been like my servant David, who obeyed my commands and followed me with all his heart and always did whatever I wanted.  You have done more evil than all who lived before you.  You have made other gods for yourself and have made me furious with your gold calves.  And since you have turned your back on me, I will bring disaster on your dynasty and will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel.  I will burn up your royal dynasty as one burns up trash until it is all gone.  The members of Jeroboam’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”  Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, “Go on home, and when you enter the city, the child will die.  All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only member of your family who will have a proper burial, for this child is the only good thing that the Lord, the God of Israel, sees in the entire family of Jeroboam.  “In addition, the Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam.  This will happen today, even now!  Then the Lord will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream.  He will uproot the people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the Lord with the Asherah poles they have set up for worship.  He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made Israel sin along with him.”  So Jeroboam’s wife returned to Tirzah, and the child died just as she walked through the door of her home.  And all Israel buried him and mourned for him, as the Lord had promised through the prophet Ahijah.  1 Kings 14:1-17

This passage of Scripture is hard to read for anyone who has a heart for children or God.  To entertain the notion that a child dying is part of God’s judgment on a faithless ruler grates at the center of our belief in a loving, gracious God.  How do we reconcile the pain of a boy’s death as anywhere near kind and loving?

(Hint:  don’t even try…some things cannot be explained)

Scripture, however, does not leave us totally in the dark.  In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul teaches that all of Israel’s history of receiving the blessing of God, and then wandering away from God’s covenant to worship other things, only to suffer the consequences of their faithless idolatry, were an example for us.  If we would do well in living in covenant with the Lord, we must remain faithful.  The consequence of doing wrong is judgment; the consequence of faithfully serving God is blessing.  It’s that simple…and immutable!

As painful as reading about the judgment of God which fell on Jeroboam’s son might be, drawing modern-day conclusions as example of our fate may be like walking in a minefield.  Yet, an example as warning is as necessary as posting a danger sign on a high-power wire, or a washed-out bridge.  For those who will heed the warning, it is the means of preserving life.

So, what applies here?  What’s at risk?  Where is the bridge washed away?

This is not a difficult match for our culture.  Scripture is brimming with God’s word of warning about putting anything above God.  It would not be a stretch to say most of Scripture is about created beings faithfully loving/serving their Creator.  Following that ray of light back up to the source, we would have to give today’s culture a failing grade of the most miserable kind.  Sexual sins, killing the unborn, anger, murder, and on into the abyss…this is the legacy of Jeroboam we are creating for our sons and daughters.  And when judgment comes, shaking the entire cosmos like reeds in the river, the time for philosophizing will be buried along with whatever other foolishness we’re dabbling in, rather than faithfulness.

For You Today

Don’t get caught short in culture’s traps; return to God, and He will return to us.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

 

Counterfeit Gods

[1]

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness.  Why let the nations say, “Where is their God?”  Our God is in the heavens, and he does as he wishes.  Their idols are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands.  They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see.  They have ears but cannot hear, and noses but cannot smell.  They have hands but cannot feel, and feet but cannot walk, and throats but cannot make a sound.  And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them.

O Israel, trust the Lord!  He is your helper and your shield.  O priests, descendants of Aaron, trust the Lord!  He is your helper and your shield.  All you who fear the Lord, trust the Lord!  He is your helper and your shield.  The Lord remembers us and will bless us.  He will bless the people of Israel and bless the priests, the descendants of Aaron.  He will bless those who fear the Lord, both great and lowly.

May the Lord richly bless both you and your children.  May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all humanity.  The dead cannot sing praises to the Lord, for they have gone into the silence of the grave.  But we can praise the Lord both now and forever!  Praise the Lord!  Psalm 115:1-18^(NLT)

Many generations make the mistake of assuming they do not, and will not, make the mistakes their parents made.  There’s a good bit of arrogance in that, along with a truckload of ignorance.

The Psalmist’s words here are a strong caution and pleading that Israel refrain from repeating the mistakes of their ancestors, trusting idols rather than true God, Jehovah.  Yet with clear warning right in front of them, they did it anyway…over and over again!  We’ve heard that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity; in this case it includes the definition of idolatry.

The Psalmist makes his case against worshipping idols of carved wood and stone – unhearing, unfeeling, unknowing, and unspeaking gods; therefore unable and useless gods.  Then his word turns positive, bidding them to call on Jehovah, the one, true living God, who is not only able, but loving and possesses all power to help and provide for the nation.

It’s certainly a puzzle why we humans reject the genuine so often in favor of a countefeit.  Perhaps there is just something about free will that makes us choose the Burger King philosophy over common sense…I’ll have it MY WAY. 

Now, don’t get me wrong…God’s plan was for free will; it’s just that when we take that gift and the first choice we make is to turn away from the Heavenly Giver of the gift -well, it just never turns out well!  Just ask Adam and Eve.

In our Western culture of the 21^st century individualism – going it alone (my choice, my life, my body, my will, step back away from my space) is not much different than the idolatry of Israel.  We have exchanged idols of carved wood, stone, and molded gold for the stupidity of worshipping our own minds and bodies. 

The problem with our choice is we are still missing the target of reality as opposed to counterfeit.  We deny the reality that we are the creation, and Lord, God is the Creator.  We are, as King James would have us remember…beholden, responsible and accountable…to Him!  And He is not an unspeaking, unhearing or unseeing, non-judging idol who knows nothing of our sin. 

For You Today

A dose of reality on a Tuesday morning:

It is incredibly short-sighted to worship a counterfeit.  America must turn to the reality that her idols of economy, pragmatic deal-making, fence-building, and swaggering bluster from the hilltops of past victories are as much a counterfeit idol as the heaping-up of social programs that we cannot possibly sustain.  America’s only hope for the blessing of God is a revival of humility and return to godliness! 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com