As I said, I've been studying Job lately and it's been
fascinating! Here's a few things from Job that I'd like to share with
you:
Job 1:1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
When this verse says that Job was blameless, it does not mean that he was without sin. We know that everyone is a sinner. What it means is that he had integrity and that he did his best to live a good life because he loved God. In other words he wasn't a hypocrite.
He feared God and shunned evil which is exactly what the Lord wants us to do. By "fear" it doesn't mean the kind where you are cringing because you are afraid, but instead is talking about having a deep respect and loving reverence for God.
Note what else we are told later about the fear of the Lord:
Job 28:28 And he said to man, ˜The fear of the Lord”that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.
The fact that the Lord Himself says that Job was blameless and upright shows that Jobs friends were totally wrong in accusing him of being a willful sinner. Also take note that it was Satan that accused Job, not God. In fact if you read Satan's accusation, he was actually accusing God too.
Job 1:9-11 Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.
Basically Satan was saying, "You have to pay people to worship you" to God. So although Job didn't know it, this whole thing was about a battle in heaven about God's integrity and to decide if God was indeed worthy of worship.
Another important fact we discover from this is that Satan can NOT touch us without the Lord's permission! That alone shows who is really in control all the time.
When I was thinking about what Satan was inferring to God about the only way He could get us to worship Him was by giving us wealth and stuff, it reminded me of the word of faith garbage. (WOF or word of faith is the abbreviation for the belief that if you want something all you have to do is "claim it" and God will give it to you. They teach that you can find promises in God's word that say that he promises you that he will make you financially wealthy, perfectly healthy and give you a car or whatever else you "claim". It's also sometimes referred to as the "name it and claim it" group. This goes completely against what God's Word actually says though. If anyone doesn't understand this or know about the teachers who teach it today, or want more info, please feel free to ask. I suggest though that you ask in the Today's Teachers and Prophets Forum, and also browse through some of the threads in that forum for more info) This shows us exactly where that doctrine comes from: Satan! God doesn't promise us wealth, or anything else in this life other then eternal life with Him.
Next after Satan has done his dirty first dirty deed, we see how Job reacts to the loss of his children and wealth:
Job 1:20-22 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
This is just amazing! Job was crushed and broken hearted and yet His immediate reaction after showing his grief, was to worship God! In his worship he shows that he understands that God is in control, that it was because of God's goodness that he had those good things, and that it was within God's rights to take them away. He shows that he understands that God always has a good reason for the things He does, even when we don't know what it is.
When I read Job's reaction I felt that this was also a hint for us as to how we should react to our own suffering. I'm not saying that we shouldn't grieve, we should. Just as Job did also, but we should also worship God and praise Him even in the midst of our suffering.
This will do a couple of things for us. First it takes our eyes off our problem or off our physical or emotional pain, and puts them on the One who can help us, God. Second, it reminds us that God is with us right now and makes Him more real to us in the moment. Third, by putting our attention on Him, it allows Him to fill us with His peace and comfort us.
I know that for me, when I start truly worshiping and praising God, I feel much better emotionally and mentally and that also affects how I feel physically. You just can't lift your heart and hands in worship and not be affected that way!
The next thing that really stood out for me was in chapter 2, where his wife tells him to curse God and die. I really feel for her because she must have been every bit as crushed as Job over the loss of her children and wealth and now Job's illness. The loss of the wealth was probably nothing to her compared to the loss of her children. I think in fact that her reaction is closer to what my own probably would have been. That's probably what I would have felt like doing.
Job however, tells her she's being foolish and that it's within God's right to do what has been done. Finally though in chapter 3, we see that his illness gets to him and he begins feeling sorry for himself. He isn't contemplating suicide here as some suggest but rather he's crying out as so many of have, "Why me? Why was I ever born??" I can certainly relate to that heart cry and I think most people can. This is what finally causes Job's so called friends to start speaking.
But first I want to share with you what Job's illness actually entailed because I think a lot of us can relate to some of what he suffered:
So we can see from this that Job was in terrible physical suffering. Yet he still worshiped the Lord even though he grieved and asked "why". It's the "why" that his friends tried to answer. Each one of them decided that the only possible reason Job could be suffering so was because God must know of some hidden sin in his life and was punishing him for it. Again, just like what the word of faith garbage teaches. Thankfully we can know for sure this isn't true because God himself vindicates Job and tells his friends that they're wrong.
One other thing stood out to me in chapter 3 that I wanted to share with you:
Job 3:25-26 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.
This seems to indicate that Job had had an intuition or feeling that something bad was going to happen. I know I've had that feeling before too and have been right, just as Job obviously was in this instance. I think God gives us these feelings sometimes to motivate us to seek Him and pray about it, so that when it happens, we already have hold of our life preserver-Him- and don't have to struggle to find Him.
Job 1:1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.
When this verse says that Job was blameless, it does not mean that he was without sin. We know that everyone is a sinner. What it means is that he had integrity and that he did his best to live a good life because he loved God. In other words he wasn't a hypocrite.
He feared God and shunned evil which is exactly what the Lord wants us to do. By "fear" it doesn't mean the kind where you are cringing because you are afraid, but instead is talking about having a deep respect and loving reverence for God.
Note what else we are told later about the fear of the Lord:
Job 28:28 And he said to man, ˜The fear of the Lord”that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.
The fact that the Lord Himself says that Job was blameless and upright shows that Jobs friends were totally wrong in accusing him of being a willful sinner. Also take note that it was Satan that accused Job, not God. In fact if you read Satan's accusation, he was actually accusing God too.
Job 1:9-11 Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.
Basically Satan was saying, "You have to pay people to worship you" to God. So although Job didn't know it, this whole thing was about a battle in heaven about God's integrity and to decide if God was indeed worthy of worship.
Another important fact we discover from this is that Satan can NOT touch us without the Lord's permission! That alone shows who is really in control all the time.
When I was thinking about what Satan was inferring to God about the only way He could get us to worship Him was by giving us wealth and stuff, it reminded me of the word of faith garbage. (WOF or word of faith is the abbreviation for the belief that if you want something all you have to do is "claim it" and God will give it to you. They teach that you can find promises in God's word that say that he promises you that he will make you financially wealthy, perfectly healthy and give you a car or whatever else you "claim". It's also sometimes referred to as the "name it and claim it" group. This goes completely against what God's Word actually says though. If anyone doesn't understand this or know about the teachers who teach it today, or want more info, please feel free to ask. I suggest though that you ask in the Today's Teachers and Prophets Forum, and also browse through some of the threads in that forum for more info) This shows us exactly where that doctrine comes from: Satan! God doesn't promise us wealth, or anything else in this life other then eternal life with Him.
Next after Satan has done his dirty first dirty deed, we see how Job reacts to the loss of his children and wealth:
Job 1:20-22 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
This is just amazing! Job was crushed and broken hearted and yet His immediate reaction after showing his grief, was to worship God! In his worship he shows that he understands that God is in control, that it was because of God's goodness that he had those good things, and that it was within God's rights to take them away. He shows that he understands that God always has a good reason for the things He does, even when we don't know what it is.
When I read Job's reaction I felt that this was also a hint for us as to how we should react to our own suffering. I'm not saying that we shouldn't grieve, we should. Just as Job did also, but we should also worship God and praise Him even in the midst of our suffering.
This will do a couple of things for us. First it takes our eyes off our problem or off our physical or emotional pain, and puts them on the One who can help us, God. Second, it reminds us that God is with us right now and makes Him more real to us in the moment. Third, by putting our attention on Him, it allows Him to fill us with His peace and comfort us.
I know that for me, when I start truly worshiping and praising God, I feel much better emotionally and mentally and that also affects how I feel physically. You just can't lift your heart and hands in worship and not be affected that way!
The next thing that really stood out for me was in chapter 2, where his wife tells him to curse God and die. I really feel for her because she must have been every bit as crushed as Job over the loss of her children and wealth and now Job's illness. The loss of the wealth was probably nothing to her compared to the loss of her children. I think in fact that her reaction is closer to what my own probably would have been. That's probably what I would have felt like doing.
Job however, tells her she's being foolish and that it's within God's right to do what has been done. Finally though in chapter 3, we see that his illness gets to him and he begins feeling sorry for himself. He isn't contemplating suicide here as some suggest but rather he's crying out as so many of have, "Why me? Why was I ever born??" I can certainly relate to that heart cry and I think most people can. This is what finally causes Job's so called friends to start speaking.
But first I want to share with you what Job's illness actually entailed because I think a lot of us can relate to some of what he suffered:
Quote:
|
The two Hebrew words translated painful sores were used of the plagues of festering boils in Egypt (Ex. 9:8-11; Deut. 28:27) and of Hezekiahs illness (2 Kings 20:7, boil). Some scholars say the disease may have been smallpox; others say it was elephantiasis. It was apparently some skin condition withscabs or scales , such as pemphigus foliaceus (cf. Rupert Hallam, emphigus Foliaceus, in The British Encyclopaedia of Medical Practice. 2nd ed. 12 vols. London: Butterworth, 1950-52, 9:490-2). This disease, as attested by physicians today, matches the symptoms of Jobs afflictions inflamed, ulcerous sores (Job 2:7), itching (v. 8), degenerative changes in facial skin (vv. Job 2:7, 12), loss of appetite (Job 3:24), depression (Job 3:24-25), loss of strength (Job 6:11),worms in the boils (7:5), running sores (Job 7:5), difficulty in breathing (Job 9:18), darkness under the eyes (Job 16:16), foul breath (Job 19:17), loss of weight (Job 19:20; Job 33:21), continual pain (Job 30:17), restlessness (Job 30:27), blackened skin (Job 30:30),peeling skin (Job 30:30), and fever (Job 30:30). Job 2:12-13. Job was so disfigured by the disease that they . . . hardly recognized him |
So we can see from this that Job was in terrible physical suffering. Yet he still worshiped the Lord even though he grieved and asked "why". It's the "why" that his friends tried to answer. Each one of them decided that the only possible reason Job could be suffering so was because God must know of some hidden sin in his life and was punishing him for it. Again, just like what the word of faith garbage teaches. Thankfully we can know for sure this isn't true because God himself vindicates Job and tells his friends that they're wrong.
One other thing stood out to me in chapter 3 that I wanted to share with you:
Job 3:25-26 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.
This seems to indicate that Job had had an intuition or feeling that something bad was going to happen. I know I've had that feeling before too and have been right, just as Job obviously was in this instance. I think God gives us these feelings sometimes to motivate us to seek Him and pray about it, so that when it happens, we already have hold of our life preserver-Him- and don't have to struggle to find Him.
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