Latest / Faith by annm2705 / 900. Bible Study: Job 6 (Supporting Friends during Suffering)

Transcript

900. Bible Study: Job 6 (Supporting Friends during Suffering) · Faith by annm2705

0:00
We're covering Job chapter 6 today.
0:04
First let's pray. Dear Lord, please be with us and
0:08
open our eyes to what you have to say to us through this.
0:12
We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. So now Job is responding to his
0:19
friends advice from chapter 5. Then Job replied, If only my
0:26
anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the
0:30
scales, it would surely outweigh the sand of the Seas.
0:34
No wonder my words have been impetuous.
0:37
The arrows of the Almighty are in me.
0:40
My spirit drinks in their poison.
0:43
God's terrors are marshalled against me.
0:46
Does a wild donkey Bray when it has grass, or an ox bellow when
0:51
it has fodder? Is tasteless food eaten without
0:55
salt, or is there flavor in the SAP of the mallow?
1:00
I refuse to touch it. Such food makes me ill.
1:05
Oh, that I might have my request that God would grant what I
1:09
hoped for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let
1:14
loose His hand and cut off my life.
1:17
Then I would have, then I would still have this consolation, my
1:22
joy and unrelenting pain, that I had not denied the words of the
1:27
Holy One. What strength do I have that I
1:32
should still hope? What prospects That I should be
1:35
patient? Do I have the strength of stone?
1:39
Is my flesh bronze? Do I have any power to help
1:43
myself now that success has been driven from me?
1:48
Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear
1:52
of the Almighty. But my brothers are undependable
1:55
as intermittent streams, as streams that overflow when
1:59
darkened by thawing ice and swollen with melting snow, but
2:03
that stop flowing in the dry season and in the heat vanish
2:07
from their channels. Caravans turn aside from their
2:10
routes. They go off into the wasteland
2:13
and perish. The caravans of Tima look for
2:15
water. The travelling merchants of
2:17
Sheba look in hope. They are distressed because they
2:21
had been confident. They arrive there only to be
2:24
disappointed. Now you too have proved to be of
2:29
no help. You see something dreadful and
2:31
are afraid. Have I ever said give me
2:34
something on my behalf? Pay a ransom for me from your
2:37
wealth. Deliver me from the hand of the
2:39
enemy. Rescue me from the clutches of
2:42
the ruthless. Teach me and I will be quiet.
2:45
Show me where I've been wrong. How painful are honest words.
2:50
But what you. But what do you?
2:55
What do your arguments prove? Do they mean to correct what I
2:59
say and treat my desperate words as wind?
3:04
You would even cast lots for the fatherless and barter away your
3:08
friend. But now be so kind as to look at
3:11
me. Would I lie to your face?
3:14
Relent. Do not be unjust, consider, for
3:17
my integrity is at stake. Is there any wickedness on my
3:21
lips? Can my mouth not discern malice?
3:25
And that ends chapter 6. So I will read through the
3:31
questions and answers on this from the study Bible.
3:36
Were Job's troubles due to God's arrows, God's terrors?
3:41
From verse four? In a sense, yes.
3:43
Since God allowed the troubles he can, He can be seen as the
3:48
one ultimately responsible. What Job had difficulty seeing
3:52
as we do too, is that troubles are not always just a result of
3:57
sin, although God can use our troubles to accomplish great
4:01
good like He did for Joseph when his brothers were They put him
4:06
in a pit and then he saved everyone from the famine in
4:11
Egypt. God is not morally response
4:14
morally responsible for Satan's wickedness.
4:18
Since the Bible teaches that God is holy Leviticus 1145 and
4:25
righteous in all his ways from Psalm 145 verse 17, we know he
4:32
does not devise evil from James chapter 1 verses 13 through 15,
4:38
He cannot be made a scapegoat for Satan's destructive
4:42
activities. I think that's really important
4:45
that we realize that these hardships that come that God
4:49
allows, we can't blame him for that because knowing who he is
4:57
and there is a reason behind everything.
5:02
And I've I looked at a lot of scripture to find out what the
5:06
reasons are and, and we have more benefit than Job.
5:10
We have the benefit of Job's book in the Bible.
5:13
So we can understand this better.
5:16
But suffering is always has always been something that
5:20
people question about God. But it because suffering
5:26
happens, we can't forget about who God is and we have to look
5:32
at. So if God is holy and he's
5:36
righteous in all his ways and he does not devise evil, none of
5:42
these are his ideas. The whole problem is free will
5:47
because God gave angels free will and he gave us free will,
5:55
the ability to respond back to him.
5:59
And so just like us where we have a re, you know, our
6:04
response to God for what he's done is very important.
6:09
And so is it with the angels. And there are angels that fell
6:16
from their places. It says in Scripture that they
6:18
are locked up for the end. They are currently in chains and
6:23
some of them, not all of them. And then in the Book of
6:25
Revelation, I think it's chapter 12 where it talks about the
6:29
dragon sweeping 1/3 of the angels with his tail.
6:34
Like the dragon is symbolic of Satan.
6:37
It's clear it's it's identified. The symbolism in there.
6:41
The dragon is Satan. It's clarified in the Book of
6:44
Revelation, even though it's listed symbolically.
6:48
And then the stars also are symbolic of angels.
6:52
So those are the ones that people call fallen angels
6:55
because Satan, I guess, you know, manipulated or convinced
7:00
or deceived 1/3 of the angels that were in heaven to go along
7:05
with his schemes and not and be disobedient to God essentially.
7:10
So the reasons that I found in reading Scripture because I
7:14
wanted to know, I mean, like I mentioned in prior podcasts,
7:18
like stuff, you know, was happening to me not on the same
7:22
level of Jobs, but personally, I mean things that were making me
7:26
as distraught as Job. And this was in my initial
7:30
seeking God, that this was happening and I hadn't read the
7:34
Bible. I didn't know about this.
7:37
And I was so confused, like what is happening in my life because
7:41
I was really being more dedicated to God at the point
7:46
these things started happening. And I just thought, this doesn't
7:50
make sense. Like my, my, this was my
7:52
ignorance. My life should be better because
7:55
I am, you know, doing more now than I ever did, like I'm being
7:59
more obedient to God and all of that.
8:02
And, and then the outcome wasn't that.
8:05
And I thought, what is going on here?
8:07
But at the same time, I chose, I mean, I, it was just like I knew
8:12
God was good and for some reason I knew that all my life.
8:16
I didn't blame him for that, but I just didn't understand.
8:20
I was questioning, and it's so ironic that even before I read
8:25
the Bible, that I was praying to God in a very desperate state
8:28
and I opened up the Bible to the book of Job.
8:31
That was the first book I opened up to.
8:34
And was that the Providence of God making that happen to me?
8:38
It certainly answered my pleas to him, my request to him, my
8:42
prayer to him, and it was at a moment of prayer to Him.
8:46
I, I don't look at things as coincidences anymore based on a
8:50
lot of things that have happened in my life.
8:52
Like I, I do see God as being Provident over all and He can
8:57
use our free will and he can work with he could, He works
9:02
with the wickedness of people and He can use it ultimately to
9:07
accomplish His goal. And when people are submitted to
9:12
Him and He is our Lord, that means we go to him for guidance.
9:19
We abide in what He says, what He tells us to do.
9:23
When we are in that position of I guess of respect to Him, then
9:31
he can work out the bad stuff that happens to us ultimately
9:35
for our good. So the most important lesson, I
9:39
think from the book of Job is don't turn your back on God.
9:43
God is the all powerful. He can change your circumstances
9:49
and he eventually will. I don't know what the timing is
9:54
for everyone, but there's a there's a reason and a purpose
9:59
for the things that we go through.
10:01
And the best thing to do is to ask God for that reason and that
10:05
purpose, but not to get angry with God because we should we
10:12
should know from Scripture that God is good, that he loves his
10:16
children. He sometimes disciplines his
10:17
children, just like Iliffez was or Eliphez was saying to his
10:21
friend. He didn't he wasn't aware that
10:24
Satan was actually trying to test Job.
10:27
And again, we don't really know for sure why God allowed that to
10:31
happen. Like I'm speculating that maybe
10:34
God was trying to show Satan, hey, this guy is really good.
10:37
He's a human being and he's even not denying me.
10:41
But you know, you know, letting Satan know, but you are created
10:45
with more abilities than he, yet you are rejecting me.
10:51
You know, I don't know if maybe God was trying to show Satan
10:55
this. I don't know, I don't know the
10:57
purpose. But God had some level of
10:59
confidence and knowing Job's heart and he allowed this to
11:05
happen. But in the end of the the book,
11:07
he does restore Job. And, you know, someday we'll
11:11
probably meet Job. If we're in God's Kingdom, we're
11:13
going to meet Job and then we will see what God has done to
11:17
him. I mean, it's going to be pretty
11:18
interesting. He might have this amazing role
11:22
in in God's Kingdom. I don't know just anyway, so
11:27
about reasons for suffering. I mean, just looking through
11:31
because I've tried to understand that there are things that we
11:33
don't understand and we won't understand about suffering and
11:37
about, you know, children, you know, young children dying.
11:41
I mean, none of that makes sense to us, but we have to trust God
11:47
that there's a reason that God did it.
11:49
And I, I think about with young children that died, I think
11:54
about, you know, maybe God knew something about their future
11:58
that was going to happen based on the people surrounding them.
12:01
And it was probably more merciful to take them at a
12:05
moment at that moment rather than to let them go through
12:09
something else and maybe in God's great mercy, because maybe
12:13
they could have strayed away more or something.
12:16
These, this is all speculation, but I just know that God is good
12:19
and I know that if He does that, there's a good reason behind it.
12:23
He doesn't just randomly do that or allow that to happen.
12:28
And so we have to trust him and not be angry with him over
12:33
something like that and just know that if we're in God's
12:36
Kingdom, everything's going to be restored.
12:38
We're going to be there, and that young child that is gone
12:42
will be present in God's Kingdom for eternity.
12:45
So what we've lost today will be gained in God's Kingdom.
12:50
And so the reasons that I've seen for bad things happening,
12:56
it's it's all because of sin. It's all because of free will
13:01
from God's enemy. Whether it what kind of thing it
13:04
is, I don't know, because there's, we don't know all of
13:07
the spiritual realm, but there is, there's Satan, there's
13:11
fallen angels, there's demons, and I don't know if there's
13:15
other things, but there are evil things in the world and they're
13:18
evil because they chose evil because they rejected God.
13:22
So because of their existence, that's why we suffer.
13:26
So if we want to blame anybody, blame Satan, blame actually
13:31
probably shouldn't do that. Pray for their eyes to be open
13:35
for their persons to turn to God and repent.
13:39
And I don't know if spiritual beings can repent or not.
13:44
They've been in the presence of God.
13:46
I think maybe they they can't, but that's a whole nother topic
13:50
anyway. It the the evil things that
13:53
happen are not God didn't create those things.
13:56
They are the result of free will of something else or other
14:02
people too. They could be people or they
14:05
could be spiritual, but sometimes there are consequences
14:09
of sin. And I believe that the
14:13
consequences of sin are there to get us to repentance.
14:18
Like when things get bad, that's when people, when people hit
14:21
rock bottom eventually, that's usually or often when people
14:25
turn to God. So there's a purpose behind it.
14:29
If we are stubborn in our thoughts and we're rejecting God
14:32
and we're not connected with Him and we're just going on our own
14:35
way. But because of God's love, He
14:38
has to allow these things to happen where we've rejected Him,
14:42
where this evil has access to us and can cause trouble in our
14:47
life. But eventually that trouble will
14:49
get so bad that we will be forced to make a decision.
14:54
We will either cry and plead and ask God for mercy and
15:00
forgiveness or we will reject God and then forever be
15:04
separated from Him in eternity. It also, as we see in Job, this
15:11
evil happening is testing of Job.
15:16
He's being tested. And I mean, that's just to me
15:21
that just gives the example like we could be righteous but have
15:25
bad things happen and God may be testing us.
15:29
So the best thing to do is again, reach out to God, ask
15:32
God, what is going on here? Why is this happening?
15:34
What am I supposed to learn from this?
15:37
Can it be shortened? Can you get this away from me?
15:40
You know, it's, it seems like it's, you know, just find out
15:44
what is the lesson here. And, and as I was reading Job's
15:47
reply, I was thinking about a few different comments that he
15:52
made that maybe he was too self reliant because God had provided
15:59
for him in so many different ways.
16:01
So maybe God was allowing this discipline because Job was self
16:05
reliant. So I here's where I thought
16:09
about it. He said, do I have any power to
16:11
help myself now that success has been driven from me?
16:16
So is he relying on his success and the power of that?
16:21
He's like, do I have any power? He's he's like at his ends.
16:24
He doesn't know. I mean, his success is gone.
16:27
It's gone. So he doesn't have any power to
16:29
to help himself. So that to me is really
16:33
interesting. That's like self-reliance.
16:35
That's like, I'm going to do this.
16:37
And maybe because of God's hedge of protection around him, he
16:41
became confident and he knew he was righteous.
16:45
He was grateful to God, he loved God and so he was obedient to
16:50
God. But maybe even in that he became
16:53
too self reliant thinking that he did this thing, that he did
16:58
everything or accomplished all that he did, when in fact it was
17:02
God allowing him the opportunity to be successful in life.
17:07
And I think that can be us too, where if we are successful, we
17:12
might, it might go to our head again, pride.
17:14
That's a really big issue that people that we all need to deal
17:22
with when things go well and we start thinking we did it as
17:27
opposed to God has done this for us, that it's a gift from God.
17:31
And even if it was something that we can say we accomplished,
17:36
God gave us the intelligence to make that happen, or the skill
17:40
or the strength or whatever it is.
17:44
Like it all comes from God. All good things come from God.
17:48
So we should be grateful to God for everything that we have and
17:52
remind ourselves when pride starts to creep in.
17:55
No, it's it's ultimately from God.
17:58
God just was graciously giving us gifts and not to rely on our
18:04
self. And so maybe that was what God
18:08
needed to do or wanted to do with Job.
18:11
Hey, you're starting to rely too much on your success.
18:15
You need to remember who I am. And maybe that's why He allowed
18:19
the testing. So then the other thing we see
18:23
about trouble happening to somebody could be the glory of
18:26
God. I think about the story in the
18:30
New Testament about the blind man who was blind from birth.
18:33
And Jesus's disciples said, what did his family do?
18:36
Like what was the sin or what caused this?
18:39
But Jesus said that nobody had done anything.
18:42
It was to reveal the glory of God.
18:45
So because God knows everybody before he, I mean, he creates
18:50
us, he has a purpose for each and every person.
18:53
So he knows what he wants to accomplish from when he get, you
18:59
know, when somebody gives birth, I mean he's created somebody in
19:03
the womb. And again, if there is something
19:07
that is AI, guess AI like the blind man, like the man who is
19:15
blind, nobody did anything wrong, but the man's eyesight
19:20
was restored and and he was then praising God and spreading the
19:26
message of God. So perhaps God will do that to
19:31
people who have been born with disabilities.
19:34
We don't know. And maybe it was the faith of
19:38
this man who was blind that made that happen.
19:44
So there's a lot of things that we don't really have the answers
19:47
to. And we can speculate, but we
19:49
even if we speculate, we don't even know if we're right.
19:52
The only way we can be know if we're right is if God tells us
19:56
an eternity. Yes, that's what that happened.
19:59
That's why that happened. So but.
20:02
Then ultimately God is after restoration, even if sin is
20:06
involved, he's ultimately after restoration.
20:09
Even if testing is involved, he's ultimately after
20:13
restoration. So the question when it it
20:16
comes, if we start just thinking about our sufferings and we
20:21
become short sighted, there's something that we should learn
20:23
from our sufferings. And there's something, I mean,
20:27
the most important thing would be to draw close to God and to
20:32
believe that God will restore. And, and we have to really think
20:39
about like, do we believe? It's so easy to say, I believe
20:44
like I remember like early in my life that I always believed in
20:51
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I always did because I was
20:54
raised that way. But it was like head knowledge.
20:59
It wasn't like I that I knowingly interacted with God.
21:04
I mean, I said prayers, prayers that I memorized and maybe I did
21:09
talk to God. I can't even remember back then,
21:11
but it's certainly God wasn't my priority early in my life.
21:17
And, and, and when you really get to know God, it really came
21:21
about from reading the Bible and then God being revealed.
21:25
I mean, if you don't truly know someone, you don't truly know
21:29
their character, what they do. This is all like a documentation
21:33
of God's interaction with humanity, the whole entire
21:37
Bible. And if you don't know how he
21:40
reacts and you don't know that he never changes.
21:44
He does not change, knowing that he doesn't change and that he
21:49
doesn't have favoritism. That means that he will relate
21:54
to all of us the same way that he relates to people in the
21:57
Bible. So the question is, when we see
21:59
people in the Bible, who are we? What can we relate to?
22:03
How will God relate to us? So that gives us clarity about
22:09
maybe what's going on in our life and we have to look at that
22:13
ourselves. It's a personal relationship.
22:16
Just because we see one way that God relates to somebody.
22:21
There could be a lot of other circumstances in a person's
22:23
life. So we can't know every aspect of
22:27
a person and why something is happening, but I think the
22:30
person ourselves will maybe have a better clue as to why
22:36
something is happening to us. If we examine our lives, we
22:40
examine our surroundings, we examine our choices and we look
22:44
at all of these things and then we examine our relationship with
22:47
God. Where does our relationship
22:49
stand? And our faith, Do we have the
22:51
faith? I mean, the faith really For me,
22:54
the faith really came after reading the Bible and seeing
22:58
this, where I realized this is true, this is real.
23:03
And, and this was something that I, I definitely realized that I
23:11
needed to live life differently If I believed what was written
23:15
in this book, I needed to live life differently.
23:19
So anyway, I think that's a message that we can get from
23:24
from all these things. Anyway, let's go back to the
23:27
questions and answers. So what was Job's point about
23:30
being a braying donkey and a bellowing ox?
23:33
This is a word picture as donkeys and oxen make noise when
23:37
they have no food. Joe felt he had a right to
23:39
complain, that is, to make noise about his suffering.
23:42
Job said that if someone could give him an explanation for his
23:47
troubles, he would stop his bellowing.
23:50
But while Job was starved for words to encourage and sustain
23:54
him, he received only tasteless accusations.
23:59
Eliphaz offered. Was Job suffering from
24:03
depression? Job was despondent and deeply
24:07
discouraged, as is obvious from the many things he says
24:10
throughout the book, and as almost anyone who suffered such
24:14
terrible troubles would be. But even though he experienced a
24:18
variety of physical illnesses simultaneously, there is no
24:22
clear evidence that he suffered from clinical depression.
24:25
Depression, the medical condition that tends to keep
24:28
people from being able to think positively.
24:31
What did Job want? Job wanted to die.
24:35
Since God seemed inaccessible, Job felt death was the only
24:40
escape from his suffering and pain.
24:42
But even more than an escape, Job wanted to remain faithful to
24:49
God by not denying him while he was in his weakened condition.
24:55
I can so relate to Job experience because that's how I
25:00
felt too. And that's another thing why I
25:02
think God is so loving and merciful that I opened up the
25:05
book to the book of Job when I was going through exactly, not
25:09
exactly, but similar to what he was going through.
25:13
And the one thing I can say about like death and suicide,
25:16
the enemy seeks to kill, to steal, kill and destroy.
25:22
So if we are having thoughts, those are not thoughts from God.
25:27
Those are evil thoughts. And God does not want that.
25:31
And then in fact, you know, there's a commandment that God
25:33
gave you shall not kill that includes ourselves, that
25:36
includes babies, that includes children in the womb, that
25:40
includes everyone you shall not kill.
25:43
And, and so I think if we want to show God that we love him, we
25:49
would obey his commandment. If we love God, then we will not
25:53
do that. God can make it.
25:55
I don't think there's really, the way I was looking at it too,
25:58
is that I can ask God for that. And if God chooses if that's the
26:03
right thing for the right moment, he will do that.
26:06
And that's, you know what, Joe was still being obedient even
26:10
though he was, he was just, you know, didn't know what else to
26:13
do. He was desperate and was wanting
26:15
God to do this. But God didn't choose to do
26:17
that. And God restored his life later.
26:20
And he, I mean, he had so much more later in life.
26:23
It was like double what he had before.
26:26
So if you hang on and you get close to God, if you're in that
26:30
desperate mode of thinking about death or suicide, God can and
26:36
will restore a life. It's not.
26:40
It's just turning to God and trusting in him and things will
26:44
change. I I 100% believe that if we rely
26:48
on God, it will change and we will.
26:52
We will be restored because there's evidence all throughout
26:55
the Bible for that. So why did Job call his friends
27:00
undependable when they were sacrificing their time to sit
27:03
with him? With their limited knowledge and
27:06
experiences, they were unqualified to judge Job's Job's
27:11
situation. They were evidently more
27:13
interested in defending their assumptions about sin and
27:17
suffering than they were in caring for their friend and what
27:20
he was feeling. Job needed the kindness of his
27:23
friends. What he got was criticism and
27:27
condemnation. And that's probably a message
27:30
for all of us. When somebody is going through
27:32
something, we don't always know everything.
27:35
And probably the best thing that we can do is, you know, the, the
27:42
best thing that they can do is really to turn to God.
27:45
And I, I think just to be a comfort, be uplifting to
27:49
somebody and remind them of the goodness of God, what God can do
27:55
for them and not to be critical. And we can see that his friend,
28:02
because he had that dream with that spirit that was saying a
28:05
lot of negative things. And so he's being influenced by
28:09
something evil. And of course we know that to be
28:12
true because in the first couple chapters it tells us that God
28:15
allowed that to happen. So his, even Job's friends are
28:19
being influenced by an enemy spirit of some kind.
28:24
And what are they doing? Criticizing, condemning.
28:29
They aren't being uplifting. And I think you can probably be
28:34
uplifting to a friend by pointing them back to God and
28:38
trusting in God. We don't always have the
28:40
answers. We don't know what's going on,
28:42
but we can absolutely trust in God.
28:49
So then it says why did Job mention the caravans and
28:54
merchants? This is another word picture.
28:56
Tima was an Oasis in northern Arabia.
29:00
Sheba was probably in southern Arabia.
29:04
Caravans crossed the deserts with the hope of finding an
29:08
Oasis so they could be refreshed and finished their journey.
29:13
Just as those caravans would be distressed and disappointed if
29:17
they didn't find water in the place they expected, Job was
29:21
distressed not to find devotion from those he had assumed would
29:26
stand by him, his friends. What did Job hope to learn?
29:31
There was perhaps a touch of sarcasm in this challenge,
29:34
challenge Job issued to his friend.
29:37
In his mind, they were as cruel as those who collected debts by
29:42
making servants out of orphans or even friends.
29:46
Job wanted more than their pat answers to the question of
29:49
suffering. How did they cast lots for the
29:53
fatherless? Job objected to his friend's
29:56
harsh advice. Casting lots in this case was a
30:00
means of bartering. Job was accusing his friends of
30:03
being so unfeeling. If they had the chance, they
30:07
would sell orphans into slavery along with him, their friend.
30:12
So this ends the study Bibles questions and answers for
30:18
chapter 6 and gives us a lot to think about.
30:22
If you are not subscribed, please subscribe and then you'll
30:26
be with us the next for Chapter 7.
30:29
And if you found this beneficial or think anybody else could find
30:32
this beneficial, please forward this to someone again, it's just
30:36
to bring all of us closer to God.
30:39
That's the whole purpose of this.
30:41
So thank you for joining and we'll talk again for Chapter 7.