10/25/2011 8:58:40 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Job’s Misery PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Job 2:1-3:26
Message of the verses: Today’s SD will start the last two sub-points under the main point of “Job’s Misery,” as we began the section in the last SD. Today we will begin with the third sub-point entitled “The voice of the mourners” and it covers Job 2:11-13: “11 ¶ Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. 13 Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.”
Job’s three friends come to pay him a visit from a long way off, as somehow they heard of his misery and wanted to comfort him, yet when they first laid eyes on him they could not believe what they saw, for Job was physically, and probably mentally a different person than they remembered.
I want to say a bit about the place where they found Job, for he was sitting on an ash heap and this is the place where the garbage was thrown out and burned from the town that Job was living in, so when you think of it Job went from the most prominent man in town to one sitting on the garbage dump of the town.
The three friend when they first saw him tore their clothes and threw dust into the air, and were silent for seven days something that was done when great people died as explained in Genesis 50:10, “When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and sorrowful lamentation; and he observed seven days mourning for his father.”
As far as being quiet that was perhaps the best thing that they did for Job, but they would make up for it latter when they began to persecute him with all of their advice and talk that could not have made Job feel better. Dr. Wiersbe writes, “Don’t try to explain everything; explanations never heal a broken heart.” It is best to just listen, and perhaps ask the person if they are interested in your opinion for a solution, but if not then don’t give it, just listen.
“The voice of the sufferer (Job 3:1-26)” : “1 ¶ Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said, 3 "Let the day perish on which I was to be born, And the night which said, ’A boy is conceived.’ 4 "May that day be darkness; Let not God above care for it, Nor light shine on it. 5 "Let darkness and black gloom claim it; Let a cloud settle on it; Let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 "As for that night, let darkness seize it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 "Behold, let that night be barren; Let no joyful shout enter it. 8 "Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are prepared to rouse Leviathan. 9 "Let the stars of its twilight be darkened; Let it wait for light but have none, And let it not see the breaking dawn; 10 Because it did not shut the opening of my mother’s womb, Or hide trouble from my eyes.
“11 ¶ "Why did I not die at birth, Come forth from the womb and expire? 12 "Why did the knees receive me, And why the breasts, that I should suck? 13 "For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, 14 With kings and with counselors of the earth, Who rebuilt ruins for themselves; 15 Or with princes who had gold, Who were filling their houses with silver. 16 "Or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, As infants that never saw light. 17 "There the wicked cease from raging, And there the weary are at rest. 18 "The prisoners are at ease together; They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 "The small and the great are there, And the slave is free from his master.
“ 20 ¶ "Why is light given to him who suffers, And life to the bitter of soul, 21 Who long for death, but there is none, And dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 Who rejoice greatly, And exult when they find the grave? 23 "Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, And whom God has hedged in? 24 "For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water. 25 "For what I fear comes upon me, And what I dread befalls me. 26 "I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, And I am not at rest, but turmoil comes.’”
I want to make it clear that Job did not want to end his life, nor was he cursing God, but what he was doing was cursing the day that he was born, for if he had died at birth then he would not be going through all of this misery at this time. Job was a man who was hurting, and hurting a lot.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “Pain makes us forget the joys of the past; instead, we concentrate on the hopelessness of the future.” Job was hurting and therefore did not remember all of the good things that had happened to him in the past, but only concentrated on how dark the future was, and then it got worse as his “friends” began to explain to Job why all these things came upon him.
We can see that Job cursed two days, the day he was conceived and the day of his birth. By cursing blessings he was saying that God was not good for these were good things that happen. “13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.” (Psalm 139:13-16) This is a word from God that a person’s life begins at conception.
Job asked four “whys” as he closed his curing of the day he was conceived and the day he was born. Asking why to the Lord will not heal us no more than looking at an X ray of a broken bone take away the pain. Dr. Wiersbe writes these wise words “We live on promises, not explanations; so we shouldn’t spend too much time asking God why.”
Job speaks of the place where the dead go, but the OT people did not have full revelation on this and therefore his thinking was not at all correct, for he thought that there would be a place of rest with all who had lived, and that sounded better to him than what he was going through. Job does speak of the resurrection of the dead later on in the book.
In his commentary on these verses Warren Wiersbe believes that Job had some intuition that something bad was going to happen to him, and perhaps he even prayed to the Lord about it to give him strength to go through this difficult situation.
We will look at who these three friends of Job were in the next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: A few years back, 2003 to be exact a similar thing happened to me as far as me believing that there was something going to happen to me. I knew that there was more to my Christian life than what I was experiencing and so a great tragedy came into my life, along with many others at the same time. After the tragedy I heard a message at church entitled “Blessings in the Storms of Life.” This message sustained me through those early years of the tragedy and God did send blessings in this storm as we helped to lead eighteen people in our neighborhood to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only were we able to lead these people to the Lord, but were able to disciple them as they began their walk with the Lord. One of these dear saints is now with the Lord as she died at the age of thirty-five.
This was the beginning of the Lord making it important in my life to be content, and that has never stopped. I am far from my goal of saying with Paul, “I have learned to be content,” yet I think about it every day.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. I trust the Lord for the outcome of the blood test that I have to have this morning as the first one had some problems and they want another one.
2. I trust the Lord for the safe delivery of our sixth grand-child today, that all would go well as this even is happening a couple of weeks earlier than expected.
3. Continue to learn contentment.
10/25/2011 9:54:09 AM
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