Thoughts on Job

A Just View of God

Section 4

Chapters 6 and 7

Job begins his answer to Eliphaz, and what an answer it is! We begin to see the true condition of Jobs heart. All of the false pretenses and "showmanship" have now been washed away. All that is left after loosing his family, his wealth and his health is the truth of his belief system.

For years Job has "talked the talk", now we know that it was just that - TALK. He may have believed in God but really did not KNOW God as the Sovereign God of Glory.

Eliphaz has just finished his first "speech" to Job. He has been very blunt and frank with Job about his condition. He spoke of God's Sovereign power and everlasting being. He challenged Job to seek God and trust in Him. Did Job listen?

It appears not. Job continues with his "oh, pity me" tone, which I might be able to understand after all he has been through, but I do not think that God is impressed.

He blames God for the rashness of his speech and says that he has the "right" to complain. When I think of the Love of God and how He pours out His blessings upon us I wonder if we should have the "right to complain", yet we do. I have found, in my own experience, that when I complain, fuss or argue with God He ALWAYS wins.

That is how it should be, I guess - but how does He do that through my pride and anger? I think the key is communication. I may be angry, I may be frustrated and I may be loud, but at least I am trying to communicate with Him.

God then is able to use that time of "spirit filled" prayer to show me the error of my thought pattern and turn my thoughts back to His plan and way. I must understand that my volume or logic will not change God, but instead, He changes me to be more like Him.

Job was not at that point yet. He was still very much a captive of his pride and self-reliance. He rationalizes that, if he could only talk to God that God would see things his way. Right at this moment Job had lost all hope and "his way" was simply to die.

Recapping Jobs current mental condition we remember that Job has lost everything except his life, his wife and a few friends that are there with him. He is in severe depression, his wife is telling him to die and his friends are telling him that he has sinned against God.

Add to those conditions the fact that he has not slept or ate in seven days and is sitting outside in an ash pit and you have a picture of Job's condition. Scriptural evidence shows that he was suicidal and desired deeply to die.

Job was a man who had lost all hope and could see no future. He viewed his pain as unbearable and could not understand why he was still here.

But, even through all this he takes pride in verse 10 that he has not denied the Words of God? He still does not listen to God. He is so trapped in the rule of law that he has no vision of Grace. He is showing here that "book learning" without understanding is very dangerous.

In Verse 14 Job begins to slam his friend for what he told him. Doesn't that sound like a person who is vain and proud when they are down? We try to find somebody or something to blame! "How can you say that I am the problem here?", "I could not be wrong about this, look at my wisdom!" or "You are no help, leave me alone".

Blame is so easy to apply to others and so hard for us to accept for ourselves. Job really tries to "bite the head off" his friend here. They guy may have been blunt but he was honest! I think Eliphaz's main problem was that he learned from Job and was not as versed in God's Grace as he should have been.

Job continues moaning to Eliphaz through verse 5 of chapter 7. He appears to be fully self-involved now as he talks about his scabs and boils and not concerned with his friends or his wife.

In Chapter 7 verse 6 Job begins to shout at God that he has no hope and will shortly die. He fails to realize that God is in charge of the number of his days and his own opinion cannot take away one second of God's appointed time for him.

Notice the focus on self as Job continues here: "You see me", "I shall no longer be", "I will not", "I will speak", "Am I", etc and etc.

We will see this pattern again and again as Job speaks.

Job continues to focus on God's wrath and judgments and cannot see the love and grace that is waiting for him. Today we may have called Job a "legalist" of "fundamentalist". This simply means that Job was so focused on one aspect of God's character that He cannot see the rest.

Hosea 6:6 says that God desires mercy and not sacrifice, and this same call is repeated in Matthew 9:13 as Jesus teaches the Pharisees about why He came. Remember when David broke the law and ate the temple showbread? (Matthew 12:1 - 8)

If we understand that "It is by Grace we have been saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8) how can we then abandon this grace and live strictly by the law?

This does not mean that we have the right to sin as we please but simply means that we live in the Grace of God. To live in this precious and exciting place requires a few things, they may be few in number but they are great in challenge.

1. Love God with everything He has given you.

2. Love your neighbor just the same as you love yourself

3. Daily give your entire life to him in humble service. Always be ready to

respond to His call with one response, "Yes, Lord, Yes"

How hard it is for us to die to our self and live in Him. We allow our pride to blind us to His Sovereignty and make us deaf to His call.

So often we find ourselves offering up prayers of excuses instead of praises. God is not interested in the reason you choose not to obey! He simply wants your total faith and trust in Him, for you to simply, "pick up your cross and follow him". Why don't we? you?

In verse 17 Job asks, "What is man, that you should exalt him, that you should set Your heart on him?" Who are we? Very interesting question.

We are God's very own, hand built, love formed, claymation people. He made us out of His love and breathed His own special spirit into. We were not created the same way a skunk or an orangutan was!

In Genesis it says that the animals, the plants and in fact, everything EXCEPT US, were simply spoken into being. A great outpouring of His Spoken Word created the universe and everything in it, except for mankind.

Did you ever stop and think about what a piece of paper, a mighty waterfall or a wheat field really are? They are a physical manifestation of God's Holy Word! He said it and they were. From nothing they came, riding the waves of His voice and powered by His Devine Will.

But how about us? Is it really "from the goo to you by way of the zoo" as the evolutionists theorize? Absolutely not!

We are very different from the critters and weeds of this world. We are not related to the monkeys, the apes or the duck-billed platypus!

We are special! We are indeed, Somebody!

God says that he held a conference between Himself, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:26 - 28). At this meeting He decided to make us in Their Image.

God’s hand made us out of the very dirt of the earth, much like a potter forms a vessel, and then He did something else that separates us from the animal world - He breathed in to us the very breath of life (Genesis 2:7). God gave us a spirit that no animal has. We have a wisdom to know right from wrong, to reason and think and to operate or more than instinct.

How sad and hopeless the theory of evolution is! If we are no more than animals then we have every reason to act like one! Look at what this one theory has done to our world today. We have decided that what is ok for me must be ok! We do not need to be concerned with what it may do to another family member or friend, "Hey, it felt good, so I did it" seem to be the motto for our world today. How sad.

God set up for us a different system and gave us the tools to fulfill His Sovereign Will for us. He gave us the ability to learn from our lives, to amass data, to grow in wisdom and to choose to do the right thing.

I know this may seem a long way from Job, but bear with me. A just view of God begins with the beginning.

God created us individually and specifically. He gave us the free will to choose Him or to abandon Him. Anything less and we would be the same as the Hyena roaming the range focused only on our next meal or next drink of water. We would be robots who could not disobey Him, nor love Him.

Mankind has the ability to pick the path we will follow, and to change our path.

In Matthew 7:13 – 14, God explains the only two paths we have to choose from. Will we travel the interstate of the world that looks good, smells good, has wide lanes and lots of nice rest stops along the way as it leads straight to hell, or will we choose the lesser traveled path, the one that is narrower and has more hills on it that leads to Him? We get to choose.

Right now Job was choosing the often-traveled road of self-pity and self-righteousness. He was indeed a "good man" but not the perfect man he proclaimed to be. Job's wisdom was faulty because it had been filtered by his pride.

In verse 21 Job asks why God doesn't simply forgive him and let him die.

The fact is that without repentance God will not forgive. We must become "broken" of ourselves, turn away from the wrong that infests our life and place out undivided attention on Him. God does not share the spotlight with anyone - not even you....He deserves to be first.

1 John 1:7 – 9 comes to mind as I prepare to close this installment of Job. God here teaches us that we must walk in the everlasting Light of God, be cleansed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. We must remember that we will still sin no matter how “righteous” we are here on this plane, but forgiveness through Jesus is always available if we will agree with Him about our sins and turn away from them and allow Him to cleanse our unrighteousness from us.

What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.