OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 16

Job 16:1-22

16:1-5 It disheartened Job that his friends failed to even try to support him. His family, health and home were gone but they did not try to strengthen their friend. Their words were empty; they were not supportive or instructive. The simply condemned Job for sin they pretended he was guilty of committing. 

16:6-14 Job lamented. He did not understand the reason behind his situation but felt unfairly dealt with. The irony is that often children and prophets of God suffer adversity just as Jesus did. Our response to varied circumstances in our life is a proclamation of the strength and quality of our faith. 

16:15-17 Job was depressed and quite ready to quit. But he did not quit, and more importantly, he did not cease making honest prayers to God. Job remained connected with God and for that reason, he was delivered. 

16:18-22 Essentially Job voiced the cry of humanity to God. In moments of desolation, depression and injustice, we cry out to God. But has listened to us; He sent to us a savior. Jesus brought the philosophy of God to humanity. He taught us how to overcome and persevere, how to inherit the provision and protection of God's kingdom. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 15

Job 15:1-35

15:1-6 Although Job made honest pleas to God and spoke frankly to his friends, they refused to see reason in his statements. They insisted that Job was a sinful man who deserved punishment. They were entirely wrong: Job was a righteous man and he was not being punished. From people like Eliphaz in scripture, we learn that we cannot heal or correct people by emphasizing or insisting on their faults or failures. Productive criticism leads a person to seek God's judgement and counsel rather than one's own.

15:7-13 Job's friends were annoyed that he considered them to be wrong. They wanted their speeches to be well received, even though their talk was empty and unhelpful. They felt they were righteous enough to condemn Job to sins he had not committed. 

15:14-16 Job professed innocence and his friends rejected it. They pretended to understand the work and decisions of God. They attempted to explain a situation they knew nothing about and were not involved in. No person can accurately or totally interpret the reason behind another's (or even their own) hardship. Trials in life serve as many different things for many different people.

15:17-26 Eliphaz was a self-proclaimed wise man, but was not actually so. He felt that all tribulation was sent as punishment from God. Yet from earlier books in the Bible especially, we learned that God disciplines and sometimes allows people to choose their own destructive path but punishment is not His method. Love is God's method. Release is God's method: those who were evil were broken from their covenant with God and instead of punished, were released to live their own tumultuous life.

Tribulation was not an absolute indication that Job was guilty of sin.

15:27-35 Rather tragically, Eliphaz used fear against Job. He spoke to Job of death and darkness. He never listened to Job. And it is clear that Eliphaz never listened to God either. He did not love his friend Job, he only admonished him. He had no empathy, no understanding, no constructive support, encouragement or advice. He just liked to condemn. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 14

Job 14:1-22

14:1-5 Unaware that God was not exacting harsh judgement on him, Job felt too fiercely scrutinized. He felt that life was too short and humans too weak to measure up to the perfection of God. But God does not require perfection and Job was wrong to assume that He does. 

14:6 Job requested an unimportant, routine life but such a dull life is never chosen for a righteous child of God. God's children's lives are orchestrated by Him to be important, impactful, both planned and spontaneously unique. Had Job received a yes to that particular prayer, he would not have been able to exemplify to Satan that a soul's connection with God can be true and steadfast. 

14:7-9 Job contemplated that even trees have more continuity than the human body. Even fallen, trees reform, rejuvenate, re-bloom. The resilience and eternal life of nature is a reflection of our soul but Job did not feel connected to spirit; Satan had succeeded at almost totally isolating Job.

14:10-12 Humans, Job lamented, lose their wisp of existence. That's true for the body of humans, but not for the soul. Because Job felt dejected, his soul separate from the spirit of God, he felt the finite nature of his body. He was wrong to do so, to focus so intently on termination, because the life of our soul does not culminate in death. 

14:13-17 Desperate as he was, Job committed himself to God. He promised to be receptive to God's voice, should he hear it once again. He trusted that God remained intently aware of the circumstances of his life. He also trusted that if there was a possibility God could revive his spirit, he would welcome it. 

14:18-22 However, Job's relationship with God needed a lot of work. Job forgot the compassionate and fair judgement of God. He mis-assigned Satan's work to God. As God's children, it is imperative that we are able to distinguish God's fingerprints from anyone else's. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 13

Job 13:1-28

13:1-2 Job had his own relationship with God, is own understanding of the word of God. He did not need others to interpret it for him, especially when their motivations and ability to do so were so off-course. It is so important to have your own grasp on the word of God, your own intimate relationship with Him. So many people and ideas and institutions will try to define God and everything else for us. Like Job, we cannot let them; we must be able to discern God's word and communicate with Him ourselves.

13:4-12 Job pointed out to his friends that they would be wiser to stay quiet. Their advice was wrong. When we do not know the right answers, we should not speak anyway. We should meditate on the word of God, we should listen for His quiet voice. In fact, Job reminded his friends that it was dangerous to speak false claims in God's name. 

13:13-19 Even though he did not understand the harsh circumstances of his life, Job chose to trust God. Job had no false illusions about his reality: he still believed it was unfair and wrong. He did not pretend everything was okay but he did cling to God. He held onto the truth that God would be his salvation. The quality of our state of mind, status of soul, is dependent on our ability to trust God. Job was confident in God's ultimate justice, confident in God's promise to protect and defend His innocent and faithful children.

13:20-21 Job made two specific pleas to God: [do not] withdraw Your hand from me, and let not the dread of You make me afraid. Job did not want to lose God or his relationship with God. He wanted the open communication he had grown used to, and learned to rely upon. The only prospect for his life worse than his dreadful situation was to also lose God. Job held tightly to God because ultimately, God was the one thing he absolutely could not survive without. 

13:22 He promised to answer God, to be present, vocal and contentious in the relationship. He asked the same of God. Even though there was so much he wanted to beg for from God, Job remained himself. He made an honest supplication to God. Job remembered the promises of God and proclaimed that he had adhered to the commandments of God. He was eligible for God's promises to be fulfilled in his life. 

God fully planned and prepared to fulfill those promises.

13:23-28 Job was right to trust God's future plan but wrong to think that God was absent from his present. God does not poke and prod at people. Satan, the force of corruption in the world is the one that pokes and prods. It benefits our lives greatly to remember that. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 12

Job 12:1-25

12:1-3 Exasperated with his friends arrogant and unhelpful advice, Job tried once again to explain that he already knew everything they were telling him. It wasn't that Job was not receptive to constructive criticism, it's that his friends' criticism was off-point and not constructive at all to his situation. Indeed Job's life had deconstructed; they did not work to construct it but to dance on the ashes and tell their friend how much he deserved it. 

12:4-6 It frustrated Job that as a righteous man, he seemed to suffer more persecution than the unrighteous. It was not the only person to ever feel that way: 

Psalm 73:1-3; 16-17

Truly God is good to Israel,

To such as are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled;

My steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the boastful,

When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

When I thought how to understand this,

It was too painful for me—

Until I went into the sanctuary of God;

Then I understood their end.

The psalmist and millions of others throughout generations, also experienced consternation at was seemed like a broken, illogical formula. But the balm for such frustrations is to re-enter the sanctuary of God, to allow Him to remind you of His ultimate plan. 

12:7-12 To drive the point home that his friends words made no beneficial impact, Job explained that the whole natural world easily understood God's power. Job knew that his plight was not random; he knew that in some way, God was involved and in all ways aware. Job was not an existentialist, he knew the world had a creator and he know God was the creator. He just did not know the reason behind the events that transpired in his life. 

Awareness and acknowledgement of God gives a person the opportunity to consult Him. It allows us to understand that life is not random or chaotic or pointless. It has order and intention. We might not always understand what it is, but we know it is there. And that is a saving grace.

12:13-25 Job spoke of God's unchallenged omnipotence and full arsenal of wisdom and authority. Job knew God well and loved God for all that He is. He agreed with and submitted to God's will. He spoke ten verses full of God's almighty power. He knew God well.

His friends were trying to explain God to him but he already knew. Much of the book of Job serves as an opportunity for us to learn how to give helpful advice and how to resist unhelpful advice. From them we learn that anyone who relentlessly insists that God is punishing us, is someone who's advice is not worth taking. That viewpoint was completely off base for Job and it is for you too. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 11

Job 11:1-20

11:1-6 Job's friends remained unhelpful. It seems their single determination was to convince Job that he was a bad person. We all need people in our lives who are not afraid to compassionately provide constructive criticism. But when we are hurt and confused, it is not helpful to have our imperfection targeted and relentlessly pressed. Job was not perfect but he was good. He did not deserve for his friends to be so cruel.

11:7-12 Zophar thought it was haughty of Job to profess innocence. Zophar felt that God was clearly announcing Job's sin... yet his interpretation was wrong. He did not listen to Job he merely waited until it was his turn to speak. Job did not pretend to be perfect; he was an honest man. If anything, Job was speaking as frankly as anyone ever had.

11:13-20 Job's friends' advice would have been constructive to an actually-wicked person. But as Job was not actually wicked, they were pointless to him. In the start of the book we learned that Job was righteous. He was joyful. Fair. Devout. Yet his friends seized the opportunity to pounce on their friend as if he were not so. They neglected to remember that he was a good man. They did not comfort him, they punished him. They insisted that God was against him, rather than for him. That drove a good man into depression. 

OT: The Book of Job, Chapter 10

Job 10:1-22

10:1-2 Job confessed that he loathed his life. His life was awful, but not necessarily because of what he lost. Job's life was awful because of what he allowed to slip away: his trust in God.

Ultimately we must establish God as our source of life and joy and hope. Without God, even if everything else was restored to Job, his life still would have been awful. It would have been an equally depressing life because God is the One who makes us wise and joyful and grateful and blessed.

10:3-7 God has declared us His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10) which he put together intricately in the womb, in Jesus. He does not destroy his beloved. Job had a dangerous, incorrect mindset and he is our example never to adopt it for ourselves.

10:8-12 Job acknowledged God's craftsmanship of his body and soul but somehow thought that God would disregard or hate his creation. Our God is The proponent of love. Not hate. Not harm. He is intentionally good.

10:13-17 Job felt that God's silence was an undeserved punishment. Sometimes silence is what constructs resilience in us. Trust in God. God had not yet revealed to Job the reason and purpose for his situation. But we have to wonder, was Job listening? Was Job searching? Perhaps he was. Maybe he was not. We must endeavor to trust and to listen and contemplate our situation with God in mind. With God in mind, we can rule out cruelty. We can rule our senselessness. We can rule out randomness. Our God is compassionate, purposeful and intentional.

10:18-22 Job no longer valued his life. He reached the depth of desperation. He felt he had no purpose, no meaning. We live in a generation where hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people live in such a place. Allow God to show you who you are and why you are important to Him and the world. Because He created each of us intricately and apportioned each of us purpose and meaning. We do not always see our value, but He never forgets.

Persist. Resist the darkness. Insist on the light. Had Job had conviction, firm belief and faith in God, he would have been confident from the beginning that his life mattered. That he was loved. Job's situation flipped completely by God's hand in the end of this book. God will draw you out of desperation, too. Insist on the light.