Day 16, January 16 Bible Reading

Day 16,  January 16

Job 11-14   Zophar and Job debate I

Job 11

• It’s Zophar’s turn to speak. He only speaks twice in this discourse but he was the most blunt out of the three friends. 
  
  

• 11:2-6 Job is now accused of being  a man full of empty talk, who should be rebuked once and for all.  Zophar is even suggesting that God should speak and open his lips against Job. The irony is God does speak later and shuts all of them up.  Zophar is letting Job know that whatever he is experiencing now, it could have been much worse. Now what sort of friend is this…
  
  

• 11:7-12 Key phrase “For an empty-headed man will be wise when a wild donkey’s colt is born a man”... Now tell me, doesn’t that qualify as “fighting words”? As proof he states that God knows deceitful men, but we cannot search out the deep things of God.  But is this true? Yes, but it is not Truth.  The truth is God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, even the deep things of God [1 Cor 2:10]
  
  

• 11:13-20 Here comes the altar call.  If you only would prepare your heart and stretch out your hands toward Him, you would be saved and “your life would be brighter than  the noonday”

Job 12

• 12:2-3 Job states his case. Key Phrase “I am not inferior to you.  Indeed who does not know such things as these?”
  
  

• 12:4-10 Job postulates that he, the just and blameless, is being mocked and ridiculed by his friends, however Job has a dig of his own.  He told his friends, ask the beasts, birds, the fish, they will teach you what is obvious :-)
  
  

• 12:11-25 - 13:2 Job was accused of being empty headed.  He now displays that he certainly isn’t, declaring what He has observed of God, and highlighting His Sovereignty. This is how you respond to someone who accused you of being stupid.
  
  

• However the main point Job is making is that, if you make appeal to God’s Sovereignty as a way to abdicate God from all responsibility and put it all on man, you are  absolutely doing it wrong and approaching it wrong.
  
  

• As Job began in 12:3, he ends in 13:2 by declaring “What you know I also know.  I am not inferior to you”.  And indeed he showed it.
  
  
  

Job 13

• 13:3-12 Job states he would like to speak with the Almighty, and take his chances reasoning with Him instead of his friends, whom he accused of  being “forgers of lies, worthless physicians”, and not representing God accurately.  “Will you speak wickedly for God, And talk deceitfully for Him? Will it be well when He searches you out? Or can you mock Him as one mocks a man?”  
  
  

• So, my question is, how did his friends misrepresent or mock God so far?  Most of what they said was true.  Job’s friends are like people today being able to quote scripture and argue on scripture to push what they know is true, but not going further to determine the TRUTH.  
  
  

• The whole point of Job is to show that you can say things that are true, but you still miss the TRUTH.
  
  

• 13:13-19  This is exactly Job’s position.  He states “though he slay me, yet will I trust Him...He also shall be my salvation”. Job contends a hypocrite cannot come before Him.  Now that is powerful.
  
  

• 13:20-27 Job appeals directly to God, to not do two things: 1.) don’t withdraw His hand far from Him, and 2.) don’t let the dread of Him make Job afraid to approach Him.  We all know from the inside story, that this was not a case of God withdrawing His hand, per se, but a case of God “stretching out His hand”, first against his property, his family and then his flesh (Job 1:11-12; Job 2:5-6).  This “stretching out His hand” or as the Hebrews would say, his Left hand, was equivalent to allowing Satan to have power over Job.  Job was right to appeal to God’s hand.
  
  

Job 14  

7 “For there is hope for a tree,

If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,

And that its tender shoots will not cease.

8 Though its root may grow old in the earth,

And its stump may die in the ground,

9 Yet at the scent of water it will bud

And bring forth branches like a plant.

Job Chapter 14: Do You Have the Scent for Water?.  If every fall we observe the trees have hope that if they die, they will resurrect again in Spring at just the scent of water, at the scent of a season change, why isn’t this true of men?   Resurrection – which is not just simply life after death, but bodily life after life after death - is hope of all men.  All it needs is water. I have a Scent for Water. The Living Water of Life that flows from His Throne.  [1 Cor 15:22-23] “2 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn…”

• 13:28 -14:1-6 The frailty of man is discussed, the fact that man has a short time on the earth and his days are appointed by God.  The key phrase here is “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!”  But we know what is impossible with man, is possible with God.  Again it is true, but not the TRUTH.
  
  

• 14:7-15 Key phrase “If a man dies, shall he live again”.  These verses are some of my favorite in the book of Job.  After bemoaning that man is like a flower and fades away, he states that there is more hope for a tree, because, even though its root will grow old and its stump may died in the ground, Job utters the absolutely accurate prophetic declaration “So man lies down and does not rise, till the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused from their sleep”
  
  The key question is “when will the heavens be no more”? That’s when man will rise.  More in that later as we read the scriptures.
  
  

• 14:16-22 After that great musing, Job comes back to ”reality”.  But for now, he says to God, you number my steps, and destroy the hope of man like erosion that occurs in nature.  Maybe Job should not have returned to “reality”. This is why God rebuked him.