Sarcasm when talking to his Friends

 

Job 12:1-6

 

February 22, 2020

 

 

 

Then Job answered and said: “No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.  But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you.  Who does not know such things as these?  I am a laughingstock to my friends;  I, who called to God and he answered me,  a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.  In the thought of one who is at ease, there is contempt for misfortune; it is ready for those whose feet slip.  The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure, who bring their god in their hand.”

Sarcasm when talking to someone that has all the answers may be the best reply, that is the approach Job has taken, with his three friends.  Verse one, “Then Job answered  and said: “No doubt you are the people, and wisdom will die with you.”  But in verse two we see Job following up with a large dose of truth for the three friends.  “But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you.  Who does not know such things as these?”  Did you notice Job has moved from sarcasm to confrontation?  

 

He reminds his friends that he also has been exposed to the same traditional wisdom as they have, that his body may be under attack, but his mind is still working.  Unlike his three friends, he weighs the information before coming to a judgment.

 

Verses five and six, “In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune; it is ready for those whose feet slip.  The tents of robbers are at peace, and those who provoke God are secure, who bring their god in their hand.”  Job cannot wrap his mind around why a man of integrity is being tested as he is, and the wicked are living lives of comfort and peace.

I keep wondering if Job knew what was taking place in heaven between God and the devil, would it be easier to deal with?  If you were the person God was talking about, when He said to the devil, “Have you seen Job, no one on earth is like him.”  How would you have acted, prideful, arrogant, or humble and meek?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

 

Friends moved to be Job’s accusers

 

Job 11:13-20

 

February 21, 2020

 

 

“If you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him.  If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and let not injustice dwell in your tents.  Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure and will not fear.  You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away. And your life will be brighter than the noonday; its darkness will be like the morning.  And you will feel secure because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security. You will lie down, and none will make you afraid; many will court your favor.  But the eyes of the wicked will fail; all way of escape will be lost to them, and their hope is to breathe their last.”

 

What is the measure of a friend?  It is someone who knows your shortcomings is honest with you and will be there for you in your time of sadness and sorrow and also is your biggest cheerleader.  These three so-called friends began doing it correctly, about 95% of being a friend is showing up, but these first two so-called friends moved to be Job’s accusers as if they were without sin and Job was a person who had welcomed injustice into his home.

 

This was the solution Zophar, all Job needed to do was to confess his sins, one wonders if Zophar wants Job to confess to him and his buddies, or God?  Then clean up your act and you will be restored to your neighbors and God.  These first two friends have gone to a very dangerous place, in that they act as if they are speaking for God.  My council is to run from such people!

 

You may want to reread verses 15-19, be careful of a person who makes promises that only God can make.  What a contrast to the verses above, going from a repentant sinner to an unrepentant and wicked sinner.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

 

His friends became Job's accuser

 

 

 

 

 

 

Job 11:1-12

 

February 20, 2020

 

 

 

“Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said: “Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right?  Should your babble silence men,
 and when you mock, shall no one shame you?  For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.’  But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.  “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven—what can you do?  Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.  If he passes through and imprisons and summons the court, who can turn him back? For he knows worthless men; when he sees iniquity, will he not consider it?  But a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's colt is born a man!”

Do you recall Bildad the first to be more of an accuser than a friend?  It seems that his friend Zophar has taken the role of the prosecuting attorney.  He begins by calling Job a talker, has no mercy in his speech, and often twists what Job has stated.  It seems that he only finds fault in what Job has said and no longer can see Job as a friend but as a sinner getting all that is coming to Him. 

 

Job never claimed that he had not sinned, or that he was pure before God, his only claim was that he was blameless.  One would be wise to recall God’s words to the devil.  “Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job?  No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect Integrity.”

 

As followers of Christ, we are on this side of the cross and God the Father through the premise of our trust in the blood of Jesus Christ.  Because of God’s grace and the faith, he has given us to believe that Christ’s blood shed on the Cross has covered all sin, for all that have bowed a knee to Jesus.  Job never claimed to understand all the ways of God, once more Zophar taking liberty with Job’s words.

 

 Zophar is taking the role of being God’s defense attorney, a very dangerous place, for God never appointed Him or you to that role.  In fact, I’ve yet to find in Scripture God defending Himself, when asked by Moses who should I say sent me, God said tell them “I Am” sent me.  Romans 1:18-25 makes it very clear that men are without excuse when they reject God.

 

I worked with a young salesman in my early days at 3M  and Joe would often say the hardest things to overcome in sales is ignorance and apathy, and is that not true also as one who is a follower of Christ?

 

From the Back Porch, 

 

Bob Rice

No understanding of how God would use his story

 

 

 

 

 

Job 10:18-22

 

February 18, 2020

 

 

“Why did you bring me out from the womb?  Would that I had died before any eye had seen me and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.   Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer before I go—and I shall not return—to the land of darkness and deep shadow,  the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness.”

 

Job has moved from being rhetorical to exposing his ignorance, in his deep emotional state he is talking like a man who has no understanding of the Father’s love for him.  Let’s give thought to his question, “Why did you bring me out from the womb?”  What impact has Job’s life had on every generation that hears or reads the account?  Did his life matter?  The answer is a strong yes, and so does your life, and mine.   What insights we grasp from Job’s account, first God knew him by name, and Job’s righteousness was a topic in heaven.  As parents we have all bragged about our children, that’s what God is doing with the enemy of our souls.  Second, we see that the old serpent, the devil has always been up to what Jesus shares with us in John 10:10a, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”  Do not miss this truth, it was very in doubt with the Father how this would end, but the devil thought he had a chance to teach God a lesson about His creation.

 

Also, what a lesson on friendship and the importance of just showing up, but not to come with a fix-it attitude, but with prayer and compassion.  Job’s three friends began by keeping quiet and praying and weeping for their friend Job who was in great pain and sorrow.  Then they became Mr. Fixit and then the judge, and we have seen from heaven's view, they brought judgment on themselves.

 

We also, hear Job telling God as if He could, to leave him alone, and once more Job shows his ignorance of eternal things, but you and I are on this side of the Cross, and Job as all who were before the Cross were looking toward the Messiah.  This has been a great study and I have for many nights had trouble sleeping I’ve searched my heart and mind to see if I’m passing the test, as we are told to do in 2 Corinthians 13:5.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

Job, I loathe my life

 

Job 10:1-17

 

February 15, 2014

 

 

“I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.   I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.   Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands, and favor the designs of the wicked?   Have you eyes of flesh?  Do you see as man sees?  Are your days as the days of man or your years as a man's years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin,  although you know that I am not guilty, and there is none to deliver out of your hand?  Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether.  Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust?  Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?  You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews.  You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.  Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.  If I sin, you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity.  If I am guilty, woe to me!  If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction.
 And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion and again work wonders against me.  You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me.”

 

Most of these seventeen verses are rhetorical in nature, Job is asking not to get an answer but to make a statement.  If you have been listening, Job has already given the answer to the questions he is asking.  Job wonders why God would be treating a righteous man in this way and not the wicked?  Job also knows that God knows he is not guilty, but wonders why he is being treated in this manner, is it because God has the power to do as He wishes?  (That’s Job’s thinking not mine.)

 

Now never forget that Job is sitting in the garbage with maggots eating on the boils that are all over his body, ask this question, what would I be doing by now?  Knowing the answer to all the questions does not stop one’s mind from wondering, why has He not killed me?

 

At this time Job has lost all self-worth and would not look his friends in the eye, he just kept his head to the ground, he had no clue that he was but a pond in a power struggle between God and the devil.  He is wondering is God stacking the deck against me, is he dealing with me as a righteous judge?

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

An Exchanged Life

 

An Exchanged Life

 

November 3, 2008

 

 

 

This morning, I experienced one of those mornings when the eyes open very early, and I do mean early, like 4:00 a.m.  When this happens, I roll over and begin to thank God for whoever comes into my mind.  This morning it was the healing of a baby boy named Owen and a dear friend's granddaughter named Lexi.  At 4:30, I got out of bed for a drink of water and now back to sleep, but that was not in the plan.  

 

This thought came into my mind, why don’t you get up and read that book on your nightstand, the one you started many times but have never gotten through?  So, I rolled out of bed, knowing that those kinds of thoughts do not come from me, and I believe by faith, that God must be speaking to me.  The book on the nightstand was written by Major W. Ian Thomas; “The Saving Life of Christ.”

 

I have no intention of doing a book report but I would like to share what Major calls “A New Principle,” it is the principle of an exchanged life – “ . . . It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).  That is not a new principle for me, I’ve had it taught to me and I’ve also taught it, I have not always been successful in living it out.

 

Major points out John 6:29, Jesus replied to the crowd, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  Major made this statement; “That is the work of God.  It is your living faith in the adequacy of the One who is in you, which releases His divine action through you.  It is the kind of activity that the Bible calls ‘good works.’ as opposed to ‘dead works.’  ‘Good works’, are those works that have their origin in Jesus Christ – whose activity is released through your body, presented to Him as a living sacrifice by faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to the Adamic independence (Romans 12:1,2).

 

So, what happens when we exchange something?  Something is replaced, it may be a good exchange or it might be a bad exchange.  My brother Fred, who is older would sometimes want to exchange something he had for something I had, never and I mean never do that while you are young with a brother who is three years older, you will not like the exchange.  But Jesus tells us in Luke 14:33, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”  The minimum demand is all that we have, that means you and me and all that we possess.  Let me quote from page 31; “He has got to recognize his bankruptcy so that his sole wealth is vested in the One whom God has credited to him in the person and by the presence of His divine Spirit.  This is the condition for discipleship.”  I wonder if somewhere down deep I’ve read this and said, that’s just too much, that's just too hard, I will just settle for less than being a disciple.  If so then God calls me a carnal Christian.

 

Major states on page 43; “The carnal Christian is the one who has received the Holy Spirit and all the fullness of Christ, yet ignores His presence and struggles to live the Christian life as though Christ were not there.  He is the one who constantly begs and pleads for all that God has already given him, but which he will not take.  He is the one who will not step out by faith upon the glorious fact that Christ is his life, and therefore his victory!  The Christian life is an exchanged life.”  ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ 

 

When a person comes into Christ, they are a new creation and are free from the penalty of sin, they are no longer under condemnation.  A new creation will also have a new or radical change of walk.  Major tells us on page 49, “A walk under entirely new management, revolutionized according to an entirely new principle of life.”   Major tells us that the Christian who is living the exchanged life, is first a disciple, and “he has relinquished the right to do what is right in his own eyes and has submitted to the totalitarian dictatorship of Jesus Christ.”  

 

On page 53, Major asks the following questions, they may make you mad, but they will for sure make you question your walk.  He asks, “What have you been doing since your redemption?  Still, what is right in your own eyes?  Are you sold out for Jesus Christ?  Do you still claim the right to choose your own career?  You do not have that right!  Do you still claim the right to choose the wife or husband you will marry?  You do not have that right!  Do you still claim the right to use your leisure hours as you please?  You do not have that right!  Do you still claim the right to spend your money as you please?  You do not have that right!  Do you still consider that you have the right to choose where you will spend your vacation?  You do not have that right!

 

The moment a man, woman, boy, or girl gives the Holy Spirit the right to re-establish the sovereignty of Jesus Christ within his soul, he does not even have the right to do what is right in his own eyes – let alone what is wrong!”

 

After reading the questions and getting over the fact that I do not like to be asked those kinds of questions, I talked it over with Jan at breakfast.  This is what I believe to be true; the statement I made earlier was not true in light of these questions.  I stated the following; “(Galatians 2:20).  That is not a new principle for me, I’ve had it taught to me and I’ve also taught it, I have not always been successful in living it out.”  It is the very last part of the sentence that needs changing.  I have sometimes been successful, but in light of the questions, I have often done what is right in my own eyes.  I have concluded that it is not the “exchanged life” I have often lived, but it is living in self-imposed poverty.

 

Major often made this statement when he was teaching; “I can’t, God never said I could, He can, and He promised He would.”  God does not expect me to perform for Him, He is a big God, but He does want me to seek His face, and expect Him to do it all through me.  My goal is to be able to say to each of you that I am no longer doing what is right in my own eyes but, Christ who is my life is doing it all through and for me.  What is your goal?

 

From the back porch,

 

Bob Rice

 

 

 

Job replies There is No Arbiter

 

Job 9:13-35

 

February 14, 2020

 

 

Job replies There is No Arbiter

 

“God will not turn back his anger; beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.
How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.  If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.   For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause; he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness.  If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?  Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.   I am blameless; I regard not myself; I loathe my life.  It is all one; therefore, I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’  When disaster brings sudden death,
 he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges—if it is not, he, who then is it?  “My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.  If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’ I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.   I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain? If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.  For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.  Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me.  Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

 

Three needs of today’s Church

1.    A need to grasp the Love of God for you, and that He cares for you.

• That God loves you and is very near to you, you will find that in; Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” 
• Philippians 4:4-7: “The Lord is near, and we should present our requests to God through prayer and petition”
• Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” 
• James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you“

The question is to whom are you drawing near?

 

2.    The Church needs an understanding of Channel One and Channel Two.  Channel One is the deceptive channel, and Channel Two is the Spirit of God.  Many in the church list to too Channel One, it tells you deserve, or that you have no value.  Both are lies, you do not want what you deserve, and you have great value to our Lord.  

If only Job had known who had asked permission to make his life hell on this earth, to kill his family, to steal all his possessions, and attack his person.  Jesus has given us the Church a clear picture of who the thief is.  Jesus refers to Satan as the thief in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

3.     There is an arbiter between you and God.  You will find that Romans 8:34 says that Jesus “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” In 1 John 2:1 we read that Jesus is our “advocate with the Father,” and from Hebrews 7:25 we learn that Jesus “always lives to intercede” for us.