Study from God’s Word… Job, Chapters 4 – 7 … Passage for Reflection: Job 4: 18 – 19 … NIV 18 If God places no trust in his servants, if He charges his angels with error, 19 how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!
My Journal for Today: Job’s friends had earned the right to try to bring this broken man some verbal comfort. If you go back to Job 2 : 11 – 13 [linked], you read how these men had voluntarily come to comfort their “friend;” and they had, being overwhelmed by his agony, sat with him silently for seven days. That’s being a friend.
But then these three began to open their mouths to give Job their perspective on his situation; and their friendship became questionable. The interim moral here is … sometimes when a friend is in agony, it’s just best to be there with them and for them SILENTLY, rather than to give our advice.
But Job’s “friends” did; and here, in today’s text, we read some of the advice from Eliphaz, the Tamanite, who felt compelled to give his take on Job’s plight. And in trying to help Job understand the horrors Job was experiencing, Eliphaz tried to use human logic and his limited understanding of God’s ways to bring some light to bear on what Job had experienced. The problem is that human perspective and intellect will never be able to grasp, nor explain completely, the mind or decisions of God.
For example, as Dr. Smith points out today in his devotional, Eliphaz, trying to give Job some theological logic, declares, in Job 4: 7, “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?” Well, that may feel that's right since God is a just God. But to Eliphaz, I would say >>>
WRONG!!! Eliphaz’s argument just doesn’t hold up in today’s world; because we know that innocent babies perish every day in abortion clinics. And we know that many righteous missionaries, like Jim Elliot, have perished at the hands of pagans to whom they were advancing God’s love. So, though it may seem logical that evil is met, by God, with just punishment, the logic doesn’t hold in reverse that completely righteous men, like Job, would not experience suffering in their lives, which is being allowed by a sovereign God.
Dr. Smith’s self exam question for today is a good one for all of us. He asks, “Do I rely too strongly on my own reasoning to understand a God who doesn’t always follow my logic?” My friends, I don’t know how many times I have to keep over-learning the truth that … GOD IS GOD; and I AM NOT!!
My Prayer for Today: Lord, I get it! I don’t need a lesson like you gave Job. Please know that I fully understand that You are my SOVEREIGN GOD!!! And all You do is for my good! I get it! Amen
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