February 13, 2020
Job 9:1-12
“Then Job answered and said: “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. He is wise in heart and mighty in strength—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea; who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; who does great things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number. Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him. Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?”
The theme of chapter 9 is how can a man defend himself before an all-powerful and holy God. How can the created address his Creator? Today we must look at all verses in chapter 9 that address this question. Verse 16, “If summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.” And verse 19, “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?” Andverse 32, “For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.”
Often I and I’m sure you also turn to a helps page in our Bibles to get better understanding, but all that is needed in this case is to read the verse following 32 and we find what Job desires. Verse 33, “There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
How Job needed someone who could stand before a holy God and arbitrate his case. When you address the Father, you have one who will make intersession, and you know His name and better, yet He knows yours. If your name has been written in the book of Life, then you made the transition by faith from religion to a personal relationship with the living Christ. The apostle John addresses this in 1 John 2:1,2, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
In the gospel of John we find this insight from Jesus about the Holy Spirit also being our advocate, John 14:16,17, and 26. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you.” Verse 25,26, “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
So no longer do we need to worry or fret on how we can approach a holy God, for the Spirit that lives in us will be our intercessor the Holy Spirit will do so.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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