10/28/2011 8:32:24 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Job’s response
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Job 6-7
Message of the verses: Today’s SD is broken up into two parts as it follows the sixth and seventh chapters of Job. We will take them one at a time. In this section we will see Job appealing to his friends to understand the plight that he is in and have a little sympathy for him and then Job will appeal to the Lord to lighten his suffering.
Job’s appeal to his friends(Job 6): 1 ¶ Then Job answered, 2 "Oh that my grief were actually weighed And laid in the balances together with my calamity! 3 "For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; Therefore my words have been rash. 4 "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, Their poison my spirit drinks; The terrors of God are arrayed against me. 5 "Does the wild donkey bray over his grass, Or does the ox low over his fodder? 6 "Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? 7 "My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me.
8 ¶ "Oh that my request might come to pass, And that God would grant my longing! 9 "Would that God were willing to crush me, That He would loose His hand and cut me off! 10 "But it is still my consolation, And I rejoice in unsparing pain, That I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 11 "What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should endure? 12 "Is my strength the strength of stones, Or is my flesh bronze? 13 "Is it that my help is not within me, And that deliverance is driven from me?
14 ¶ "For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty. 15 "My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, Like the torrents of wadis which vanish, 16 Which are turbid because of ice And into which the snow melts. 17 "When they become waterless, they are silent, When it is hot, they vanish from their place. 18 "The paths of their course wind along, They go up into nothing and perish. 19 "The caravans of Tema looked, The travelers of Sheba hoped for them. 20 "They were disappointed for they had trusted, They came there and were confounded. 21 "Indeed, you have now become such, You see a terror and are afraid.
22 ¶ "Have I said, ’Give me something,’ Or, ’Offer a bribe for me from your wealth,’ 23 Or, ’Deliver me from the hand of the adversary,’ Or, ’Redeem me from the hand of the tyrants’? 24 "Teach me, and I will be silent; And show me how I have erred. 25 "How painful are honest words! But what does your argument prove? 26 "Do you intend to reprove my words, When the words of one in despair belong to the wind? 27 "You would even cast lots for the orphans And barter over your friend. 28 "Now please look at me, And see if I lie to your face. 29 "Desist now, let there be no injustice; Even desist, my righteousness is yet in it. 30 "Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern calamities?
It is interesting that Job is actually addressing all three of these “friends” even though Eliphaz was the only one who spoke, for Job must have sensed that all of them agreed that his plight was due to sin in his life. We can learn from a child who described sympathy as “your pain in my heart.”
These three friends of Job could not feel the heaviness of his suffering that is described in verses one through three. His friends could not understand or feel the bitterness of his suffering as seen in verses four through seven. It is because Job did not understand what was really going on that he thought that God had put a target on him and was shooting those poison arrows at him that he describes in verses for through seven. These poison arrows were making Job’s spirit bitter. If perhaps Job’s “friends” could have given him a bit of encouragement then his spirit would not be as bitter, but they were not about to do that. When job described the two animals who were looking for food he was describing the bitterness in his heart that needed to be feed by love from his friends.
We see in verses eight through thirteen that Job wants his friends to feel the hopelessness that he felt in the situation that he was in. People who suffer for long periods of time lose hope of the future, and that is what Job was experiencing at this point.
Job felt useless, for hopelessness can lead to uselessness and the desire to go on living. Job asked God to take his life in the following verses: Job 3:20-23; 6:8-9; 7:15-16; 10:18-19; 14:13. When one looks at what was happening to Job one can truly understand his desire to die, and yet Job carried on through all of his sufferings and through all of the bad company that he faced with his “friends,” so we see that Job had little to look forward to each morning when he woke up.
We now see that in verses 14-30 that courageously Job pointed out the ineffectiveness of his friend’s ministry to him. Job did not give up on the fact that he had not sinned to cause the problem that he was facing at this time, and this took a great deal of courage just to get up each morning to face what these men would say to him.
When you read about the dry brooks that Job speaks of in verse fifteen Job is describing the uselessness of the counsel that he is receiving from his friends, for they should have been like ragging rivers full of sympathy for him.
Job’s appeal for his friends to teach him (v-24) and look upon him (v28) were not happening. Dr. Wiersbe describes them as similar to the priest and the Levite walking on the other side of the road and not stopping to help the fallen Samaritan, they were their but they were not there.
Job ends this portion of his speaking to his friends with an appeal for them to reconsider his plight and to love him as they should.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: In order for a person to have sympathy for another person the first thing they need is to love them, and then they need to set self aside and concentrate on showing the love and sympathy that the person is needing in order to minister to them in the way God did for us by sending His Son to die in our place. Someone once said that the middle letter in sin is I. I have to agree with that statement, and remember to have the “I” set aside in order to minister to the hurting people around me.
We will take up chapter seven on the next Spiritual Diary.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Like Job’s friends I need to learn more about sympathy for others, and not care about any points that I want to make, but just love those who need to be loved.
2. Continue to learn contentment.
10/28/2011 9:25:28 AM
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