11/12/2011 9:00:42 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The Trials of Life
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Job 19:1-29
Message of the verses: This section is going to be a very long one so it looks like I will have to work on it for more than one day.
In the last SD we saw Bildad describing death, and the terrors of death, and now in this section we will see Job describe the trials of life, his life. He is saying that he does not have to die to experience trials, for he was experiencing them at this time in his life, yet his friends do not truly understand it, nor seem to care.
In his commentary on this long section Dr. Wiersbe breaks it up using four sub-points to this main point “The trials of Life.” We will look at this chapter of Job through these four sub-points.
Insults (Job 19:1-4): “1 ¶ Then Job responded, 2 "How long will you torment me And crush me with words? 3 "These ten times you have insulted me; You are not ashamed to wrong me. 4 "Even if I have truly erred, My error lodges with me.”
“1 ¶ Then Job spoke again: 2 “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words? 3 You have already insulted me ten times. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly. 4 Even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours.” (NLT)
Sometimes it is easier to understand a passage by looking at another version of the Bible and that is why I also put the NLT here. The NASB uses the word error in verse four, while the NLT uses the word sin in verse four. Looking at the Strongs Concordance it says of the word translated erred “to go astray.” Dr. Wiersbe says the word means “an unintentional sin.”
Job is upset with his friends for they have insulted him “ten times” and he is feed up with it. He is saying that they are not ashamed that they have been wronging him. Then he goes on to say even if I have sinned that is between God and me. I have to keep going back to a thought from an earlier SD to help explain why these men continue to insult Job, and why they are so intent on finding out Job’s sin that caused this trouble for him. If Job had not sinned and all of these troubles came to him then the same kind of trouble could come upon these men too, and they did not like the prospect of that happening.
Illustrations (Job 19:5-12): “5 "If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me And prove my disgrace to me, 6 Know then that God has wronged me And has closed His net around me. 7 "Behold, I cry, ’Violence!’ but I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice.
“8 ¶ "He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, And He has put darkness on my paths. 9 "He has stripped my honor from me And removed the crown from my head. 10 "He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; And He has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 "He has also kindled His anger against me And considered me as His enemy. 12 "His troops come together, And build up their way against me And camp around my tent.”
We remember from yesterday SD that Bildad gave four pictures of the terror of death and now Job will give seven pictures of the trials of life in this short section of Scripture.
1. Job felt trapped like an animal (verse 6). Job is saying that God has not only wronged him, but He has closed a net around him to catch him. Job is not saying that God has trapped him in His net because he had sinned, because Job does not believe that he sinned. Job does not understand why God has done this, but it was not because of sin. Now we need to realize that Job does not believe that he is blameless before God, for he knows that he is a sinner, but Job does not believe that he committed any intentional sin to have all of these troubles come upon him.
2. Job felt like a criminal in court (Job 19:7). When a person is arrested in the United States the charges against him are given to him so he knows what he is charged with. Job feels that God has arrested him, but he does not know what the charges are and this is upsetting to him, and I suppose that it would be upsetting to anyone. However when trials come our way we should be content that God has a plan for using these trials in our life to draw us closer to Him, but that does not take away the pain that we are going through because of the trials. We can see that Job did have the right attitude about these trials in that he knew that they came upon him without him sinning and causing them to come upon him.
3. Job felt like that he was a traveler who was fenced in (Job 19:8). In the first chapter of Job we see Satan accusing God of having put a fence around Job and his family in order to keep evil away from him and keep him living in comfort. Now Job sees himself fenced in on a one way street where there is darkness and he does not know where to go. Dr. Wiersbe writes “At times God permits His children to experience darkness on a dead-end street where they don’t know which way to turn. When this happens, wait for the Lord to give you light in His own time. Don’t try to manufacture your own light or to borrow light from others. Follow the wise counsel of Isaiah, ‘Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God’ (Isa. 50:10, NKJV).” Oswald Chambers writes on this subject of light and darkness the following: “Oh, the unspeakable benediction of the ‘treasures of darkness!’ It is not the days of sunshine and splendor and liberty and light that leave their lasting and indelible effect upon the soul, but those nights of the Spirit in which, shadowed by God’s hand, hidden in the dark cleft of some rock in a weary land, He lets the splendors of the outskirts of Himself pass before our gaze.”
4. Job’s suffering left him feeling like a king who has been dethroned (Job 19:9). We not see Job who was the greatest man in the East as a broken man whose honor and prestige have been taken away from him and now he is in the darkness.
5. The fifth picture Job describes is that of a structure that has been destroyed (Job 19:10). It is hard to determine exactly what Job may have been thinking about here but perhaps he was thinking about all of the things that he once had that are now gone, have been taken away from him in a moment of time, and now he is left sitting on a ash heap with the company of three miserable friends.
6. This sixth picture also comes from verse ten and it is of a tree that has been uprooted. In Job 14:7 Job used the picture of a tree as being of hope, but now he uses it hopelessness of lost hope. In Job 14 he was speaking of a tree that was cut down, but here it is a tree that has been uprooted and without a root system there is no hope for the tree.
7. This final word picture comes from Job 19:11-12 and it is of a city that has been besieged. We see from Job 13:24 that Job believes that God has declared war upon Job and was treating him like His enemy. Job does not understand why God was besieging his tent when He could have destroyed him instantly. This way was more painful to Job. Job was a man in great pain with people around him that were making it worse and not better, so there were times when Jobs words are greatly affected by the pain and suffering that he is experiencing.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I go through the study of the book of Job I am
beginning to feel tremendous pain that Job was suffering through. There are far too many times in my life when I do not feel the pain others are going through and that is why I am thankful for the study of this book and the things that God is teaching me through this study.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. To hear words with my heart and not my ears.
2. To continue to learn contentment.
3. Ephesians 6:10-18.
4. Romans 12:1-2.
5. Proverbs 3:5-6.
6. Psalm 139:23-24.
7. 1Cor. 10:13.
8. Luke 22:40b; 46b.
11/12/2011 10:31:37 AM
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