Weekly message: God’s vindication and deliverance for His servant Job (chapt38-42)
By
Rev. Katherine Liu Bruce
Christian Arts Ministries: Biblical
Precepts & Gospel music; Pastoral ministry & Counseling
Introduction
God’s vindication and
deliverance for His servant Job--- After Satan’s attacked, God unveiled Himself
to Job, answered him and made known to him about His sovereignty as creator. Job
repented of his pride, rebellion, critics, self-righteousness, and foolish challenged
about God’s sovereignty. The good point is that Job enjoyed the intimacy
relationship with God, enjoyed God’s presence, he had heard and seen God in
person to gain the knowledge of truth. Most important, God vindicated for him, and
demanded his three friends to apologize and sacrifice a burn offering for
themselves, so that Job can pray for them. Because they interpreted about God inaccurately
and Job’s interpretation about God was right. Ultimately, God restored Job’s
health, and gave him twice more riches; wealth, children, good life and he lived
a hundred and forty years old.
God confronts Job with mysteries of
heavens, and earth
(Job 38)
Finally God breaks His silence
and speaks to Job directly and answered Job out of the storm. God said, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with
words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and
you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who
stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who
laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted
for joy?” (vv.1-7).
How absurd to think that a creature should
become the critic of the Creator. God accepts Job’s challenge, urged him
brace himself like a man (v.3) Heb., geber, denoting man in his strength as a
combatant. God mentioned constellations in the heavens, a large bright stars
and angels joined in praise when the earth was created.(v.7). Personified dawn
is represented as taking the cover of darkness off the earth and shaking the
wicked out of it like dust.(v.13). When dawn comes, the dark earth stands out
in clear relief as shapeless clay does when stamped with a seal.(v.14). God
speaks here with great irony in verse 21.
Job cannot understand even such common things
as snow, hail, wind, rain, lightning, frost, and ice.(vv.22-30). Does Job
determine the movements of the constellations in the
heaven? (v.31) and the Bear, a large bright star or constellation?
Can Job bring forth the constellations in their seasons? Can Job set up
God’s dominion over the earth? Does Job send the lightning bolts on
their way? God questions job in order to unveil God’s sovereignty who created
the mysteries of heaven and earth.
God confronts Job with mysteries of the
animal kingdom (Job 39)
God now confronts Job (through 39:30) with
mysteries of the animal kingdom in order to make him more aware of his
ignorance and thus of his inability to be a competent judge of the works of
God. The lion, raven, mountain goat, deer, wild donkey, wild ox, ostrich,
horse, hawk, and eagle are all paraded before Job’s mind. Unlike the domestic
donkey, it is fleet of foot and graceful.(v.5). In verses 13-17, it appears
to man that the ostrich is unconcerned about her young, leaving some of her
eggs uncovered (though only by day when the heat of the sand helps incubate
them) and unhitched (thereby serving as food for her young). Her seeming
lack of wisdom is not apart from God’s plan, just as behind the trials of the
godly, which seem so unreasonable to Job, lies the wise purpose of God.
Job’s silence and God continued his
second speech about His power (Job 40)
Though
God challenges Job to answer, Job wisely declines. When Job criticized God’s
ways, he was in effect trying to usurp God’s way as governor of the world.
In this paragraph full of irony, God asks if Job can really perform those
things that only God can do.(vv.6-14). Job is invited to consider the behemoth,
usually considered to be the hippopotamus. The Lord’s point is this : Since I
made both the behemoth and you, Job, and you cannot control even this fellow
creature, how dare you think of usurping My place! (v.15).
God used a second illustration,
leviathan, (crocodile) as symbolical (Job 41)
God used a second illustration, leviathan,
usually identified as the crocodile (Though sometimes used symbolically, as in
Isa.27:1), God makes the same point as in 40:15. Dismay goes
before him (v.22) Better, fear dances before him. A
graphic description of the terror that the presence of leviathan brings to
other creatures, including man. The crocodile’s scales leave an impression on
the mud as if a threshing board had passed over it.(v.30). When he swims he
makes a commotion like boiling water or like the foaming from mixtures in a
medicine bowl. (v.31)
Job’s repentance and the deliverance (Job
42)
Job repents of his pride and rebellion and
finds contentment in the knowledge that he has God’s fellowship. This is the
great lesson of the book: If we know God, we do not need to know why He allows
us to experience what we do. He is not only in control of the universe and all
its facets but also of our lives; and He loves us. Though His ways are sometimes
beyond our comprehension, we should not criticize Him for His dealings with us
or with others. God is always in control of all things, even when He appears
not to be.
No form of God appeared in the whirlwind, but
what God revealed about Himself enable Job to see Him. Four times in these
verse God refers to Job as my servant a vindication of God’s confidence
in Job when originally challenged by Satan (vv.7-8)(1:8). And God told
Job’s three friends “ I am angry with you and your two friends, because
you have not spoken of me what is right.” (v.7). and told them to take
seven bulls and seven rams and sacrifice a burnt offering for themselves. The
Lord made Job prosperous again. Job’s family all comforted him, such presents
were customarily given when visiting an important person, especially after a
calamity (2Chron.32:23).
Finally, God was given twice as many animals
as he had originally owned (1:2-3) but only the same number of children, since
the ten who died(1:19) he fully expected to see in the resurrection (19:26).
Job gives his daughters a share in the inheritance was an unusual favor, grated
later under the law only if there were no sons (Num.27:8) In that Job live to
such a great age a hundred and forty years, he obviously fully recovered his health.
Job replied to the Lord as follows,
“I know that you can do all
things; no plan of your can be thwarted. You asked, ‘who is this that
obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ surely I spoke of things I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I
will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had
heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent
in dust and ashes.” (vv.2-6).
The deliverance of Job; God was angry
with Eliphaz and his two friends
After the Lord had said these things to Job,
he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “
I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me
what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams
and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My
servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer for you and not
deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right,
as my servant Job has.” (vv.7-8). So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad
the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord
accepted Job’s prayer. (v.9).
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord
made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his
brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with
him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the
Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold
ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the
first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand
yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three
daughters. Nowhere is all the land was there found women as beautiful as
Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their
brothers. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children
and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of
years. (vv.10-16).
Implication/
Application of the book of Job
1) If
we know God, we do not need to know why He allows us to experience what we do.
He is not only in control of the universe and all its facets but also of our
lives; and He loves us. Though His ways are sometimes beyond our comprehension,
we should not criticize Him for His dealings with us or with others. God is
always in control of all things, even when He appears not to be.
2) Friends
or elders’ speech do not necessary apply to us; listen to the voice of God
rather than men. For no one knows what God speak to us individual. As God spoke
to Samuel, Jesus spoke to Saul (Apostle Paul); God spoke to Zechariah about his
son John, God spoke to Mary and Josepha about their son baby Jesus. God
answered Job in person, and demanded his three friends to apologize and sacrifice
a burnt offering for themselves, and asked Job prayed for them. God turned away
his anger from Job’s three friends because Job’s prayer.
3) Be
true and faithful for God’s calling, obey His words and stop criticizes or challenge
about God’s sovereignty because of your circumstance. Keeping perseverance and persistence in
proclamation of Jesus Christ, and Gospel. In God’s timing, God will reward your
good deeds and vindicate for you.
4) Keep
four good characteristic: 1) upright heart; 2) righteousness; 3) fear the Lord;
4) shun evil. God gives those who trust
in Him are that no eyes have ever seen, nor have ears ever heard. He is
awesome, Almighty God who created heavens and earth, and all living creature, His
kingdom is absolutely unshakable. Do not let Satan attempts you into a shameful
sin. Jesus was attempted by Satan after His 40 days fasting. Put on the full
armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For
our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph.6:10-12). Take up the shield of
faith, helmet of salvation and the swords of Spirit which is the Word of God. And
pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
(Eph.6:17-18). The battle is belongs to
God, don’t take revenge in person, let God to judge, and vindicate for us in
His timing.
Bibliography,
Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie study Bible (NIV).Chicago,
IL: The Moody
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