After forty chapters of trials, heartaches, pain, humiliation from his friends, and disillusionment, Job heard from God. This daily devotional looks at how it wasn’t the answer Job was expecting.
Nuggets
- When God points out our sin, we need to immediately repent.
- God didn’t take silence for an answer.
- We aren’t like God, but God wants us to become like Him.
Devotions in the Job: The Ultimate Test of Character series
Aren’t there days when we wish God would talk back to us? Oh, we know He answers our prayers. We feel the fullness when the Spirit moves within us.
But oh, how we long just to cuddle up to Him like we did our dads, put our heads on His shoulder, and just converse. No translator.
God talked to Job.
Let's Put It into Context
We skipped some. The last time we looked at Job, we were talking about him and his three friends.
A fourth one showed up. I know. Wasn’t three enough? Elihu gave the same soundtrack.
But something interesting happened. “Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind …” (Job 38: 1 CSB). Yep. God answered.
Elihu is talking, and God ignores him. Well, sorta. God said, “Who is this who obscures my counsel with ignorant words?” (Job 38: 2 CSB) Ouch.
God’s focus is fixed totally on Job. Let’s look at a part of what He had to say.
You Did Wrong, Job
“The Lord answered Job: Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who argues with God give an answer. Then Job answered the Lord: I am so insignificant. How can I answer you? I place my hand over my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not reply; twice, but now I can add nothing” (Job 40: 1-5 CSB)
When God points out our sin, we need to immediately repent.
Job 38 and 39 can be summed up by Job 38: 33. “Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?” (Job 38: 33 CSB).
God is in charge of everything. Job isn’t. We aren’t.
But it is like God and Job are having two different conversations. That really wasn’t what Job was asking through the first forty books of Job.
Job was asking why the things that were happening to him were happening to him. That was the difference.
Job’s focus was him. God’s focus was Him. Bradley said He never once answered Job’s questions.
What gives with that? We know God doesn’t have to answer our questions. He is God.
We also know God does allow us to question Him. In some cases, how are we going to grow otherwise? We just have to ask in faith.
Bradley gave us his opinion as to why God chose this route. He wrote, “It is as though the voice of God did not deign to repeat that He works ‘on the side of righteousness.’ He only hints at it.”
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Nope, Job wasn’t told about Satan and his wheedling. He wasn’t reassured that he was blameless.
Instead, God told Job Who He is.
That should be good enough for us.
We shouldn’t need chapter and verse so we know why things are happening. I don’t need to know why I am getting seizures at this precise moment in my life.
I just need to trust my Maker and Redeemer that He has this.
Oh, yeah. I like to be in control. I like to know what is coming and when. I like to know my options and pick what is in my best interest.
But I know God leaves a lot of chapters out in the explanations and leaves it a mystery. He just wants me to trust Him. So, I will.
God, here, comes back with “… Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? …” (Job 40: 2 CSB). I would say contends with means wrestle with.
Oh, we have to be so careful. For forty chapters, I have been thinking that Job has always stayed with
- “Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything” (Job 1: 22 CSB).
- “But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger (Job 19: 25-27 CSB).
I don’t know how many times my Ladies and I have said don’t judge, don’t judge like the four friends did. You can’t know what is happening inside.
There was something God didn’t like. It was something we couldn’t see because it was an attitude.
Maybe Job’s sin was because not only the trial went on and on but also harping of his friends went on and on. Something in the on and on made Job to say something or do something that God considered a sin.
Henry gave one explanation. He wrote, “Job had been too bold in demanding a conference with God, and thought he could make his part good with him: but now he is convinced of his error, and owns himself utterly unable to stand before God or to produce any thing worth his notice, the veriest dunghill-worm that ever crawled upon God’s ground.”
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God really didn’t tell us what the sin was. I think God didn’t want us to focus on that. We are all going to sin — even Job.
Job immediately repented. Elaine-speak for verses 4 and 5. I am nothing. I have already put my foot in my mouth, so this time, I am going to keep it shut.
Henry said that “Job now vilifies himself as much as ever he had justified and magnified himself.” He went 100% one way until God turned him 100% the other way.
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Well, as Henry says, repentance does change our opinion of ourselves.
Barrows had an interesting paraphrase for this text. He wrote, “… Shall man, rebelling against the authority of God, assume to be wiser than the All-wise? Shall he pronounce the ways of God unequal in order to vindicate his own integrity? Is it wisdom in men, surrounded by mysteries and conscious of ill-desert, to fly in the face of heaven and lay their complaints against the God with whom they contend?”
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I read that and thought, Adam and Eve. We want to know as much as God. Sometimes, we even think we know more than Him.
Boy howdy, are we wrong!
One thing of which we can be certain. God will call us on our sin. We have to be like Job when He does.
- Be silent.
- Repent immediately.
- Turn from our sin.
Jay noted that we need to practice self-examination. He wrote, “The most useful knowledge of ourselves is not that which is physical, but that which is moral; not a knowledge of our worldly affairs, but of our spiritual condition.”
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See that. Spiritual — meaning God is involved, not just doing something because it is the right thing to do. Moral — spiritual graces.
This self-examination does bring interesting results. As we identify our sins — i.e. become wiser — we start biting on ourselves thinking we are so bad. We see the inside.
But there is a big thing that stuck out here for me. Job didn’t know he had sinned. This blameless guy did know that he had messed up.
If Job didn’t know, how are we going to know?
Let’s Try That Again
“Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: Get ready to answer me like a man;When I question you, you will inform me. Would you really challenge my justice? Would you declare me guilty to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s? Can you thunder with a voice like his?” (Job 40: 6-10 CSB)
God didn’t take silence for an answer.
God wasn’t satisfied with just one round of questioning. He started in on Job again.
Henry thought Job wasn’t totally repentant. That is why God started this second round of the interrogation.
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Verse 7 says “Get ready to answer me like a man …” (Job 40: 7 CSB). The King James Version says “Gird up thy loins now like a man …” (Job 40: 7 KJV). Today’s memes would say to me pull up your big girl panties.
Verse 8 is really a condemning verse because we so many times try to challenge God’s justice and justify ourselves. We want to say what is a sin or not. We want God to take into consideration the extenuating circumstances.
That just seems so opposite to what we were told about Job in Job 1: 22. Job did not sin but must have blamed God for something (yeah, which is a sin. I guess a lot changed in 40 chapters).
Finney gave us some good nuggets.
- Nothing justifies sin.
- We are all going to sin.
- God isn’t going to ask us to do something that He hasn’t given us the ability to do or grow to do.
- Repentance has to be genuine, or salvation isn’t given.
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Whenever we try to compare ourselves against God, we will come out on the losing end. God will out love us. He is more beautiful than us. He is kinder.
God is omnipotent. That means He is all-powerful. We aren’t.
If You Think You Are Good Enough
“Adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, and clothe yourself with honor and glory. Pour out your raging anger; look on every proud person and humiliate him. Look on every proud person and humble him; trample the wicked where they stand. Hide them together in the dust; imprison them in the grave. Then I will confess to you that your own right hand can deliver you.
We aren’t like God, but God wants us to become like Him.
Here is what I get from the verses.
There is too much in this world that we could be angry about. God doesn’t want that. He isn’t.
If we are following the worldview, we are proud. Henry said “that proud people are wicked people, and pride is at the bottom of a great deal of the wickedness that is in this world both towards God and man.”
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God doesn’t want us following the worldview.
What else does Henry get out of it? Here he said Job had been passionately quarreling with God and His authority.
Am I the only one who thinks we are finding out exactly what Job’s sins are?
Another thing Henry wrote was “Job had complained of the prosperity and power of tyrants and oppressors, and was ready to charge God with mal-administration for suffering it …” That would not have been a smart move.
Okay, I could see Job complaining about his four “friends” and the power they thought they had over him.
God said that if Job could accomplish all that He outlined in these verses (which of course he couldn’t), He would allow Job to save himself. None of this could happen, so Job could not save himself.
We cannot save ourselves.
Making the Connections
We talk about the patience of Job. Monte brought up some others that are also held up as models but are not as blameless as Job.
- David
- Moses
- Abraham
Monte brought up an excellent point. This isn’t just about reward and punishment. It is about His grace. Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
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Monte also reminded us that character is not that which is seen. It is that which is deep within us.
How Do We Apply This?
“Then [we] will remember [our] evil ways and wicked deeds, and [we] will loathe [ourselves] for [our] sins and detestable practices” (Ezek. 36: 31 NIV).
- We have to remain silent before God.
- We can’t excuse ourselves to repentance.
- Repentance has to be genuine.
- We will remember that God is fair.
- We won’t become impatient through our trials when it seems like God is allowing them to drag on.
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God answered Job. The conversation didn’t go as Job expected, but it helped grow Job’s relationship with God.
Father God. It scares us to think that we might be sinning without even knowing it. Forgive us, Lord. Show us where we are sinning, so that we can repent and turn from that sin. We want to live as You would have us live. Amen.
What do you think?
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