Job's Magnum Opus of Faith - Day 225 Through the Bible

"Trashformation" Art - taking  what is discarded and transforming it into art.  

My Lessons and Applications from Today's Readings

(Ellipses are mine and are used for contemplation)

Job Speaks to His Tormenting Counselors, to His Tragedy, to His Faith - Job 19  - (To the counselors): "How long will you torment my soul...break me in pieces with words...reproach me...wrong me...exalt yourselves against me...persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh.  Be afraid of the sword for yourselves; for wrath brings the punishment of the sword that you may know there is a judgment." (To his tragedy): God has surrounded me with His net...I cry out...but there is no justice...God has fenced up my way...set darkness in my paths...stripped me of my glory and my crown...breaks me down...I am gone...my hope uprooted ...kindled His wrath against me...counts me as one of His enemies...removed my brothers and acquaintances from me...my relatives have failed...close friends have forgotten me...those of my house count me a stranger...my breath is offensive to my wife...I am repulsive to the children of my own body...I arise, and they speak against me...my close friends abhor me...those whom I love have turned against me...(To his faith): "Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!  That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever!  For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!

Zophar Defines the Wicked Man but Wrongly Applies It - Job 20 - "the triumphing of the wicked is short...joy of the hypocrite for a moment (in the eternal scheme of things)...he will perish forever like his own refuse...hides evil, spares it, does not forsake it...cobra venom within him...the viper's tongue will slay him...from the proceeds of business he will get no enjoyment...for...he has oppressed and forsaken the poor...has violently seized a house which he did not build...because...he knows no quietness in his heart...his well-being will not last...in his self-sufficiency he will be in distress...God will cast on him the fury of His wrath...it shall go ill with him who is left in his tent...the heavens will reveal his iniquity (this does happen to the tormenting counselors - not to Job)...his goods will flow away in the day of wrath...this is the portion from God for a wicked man, the heritage appointed to him by God."

Submitting to Government / Loving Your Neighbor/ Putting on Christ - Romans 13 - (On government): "render therefore to all their due taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor." (On loving your neighbor): "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law...You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  (On putting on Christ): "Do this...knowing the time...that now it is high time to awake out of sleep...for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed...the night is far spent...the day is at hand...therefore...cast off the works of darkness...put on the armor of light...walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy...but...put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts."

My Lessons and Applications - Regarding Zophar's speech on the wicked: His theology is right (his view of the wicked from the Bible's eternal perspective); his application to Job as being wicked is wrong.  I must be extremely cautious in trying to interpret why something has happened in another person's life.  My priority must be in making certain I am led my the Holy Spirit - not by envy, strife or the lusts of the flesh (Romans 13). I must continually make careful study of God's Word, apply it to my life, observe its truth manifested in lives around me (this is usually long-term as God is patient and long-suffering and desires that none perish - 2 Peter 3:9), put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be Christ to the world.
Job analyzes his tragedy from his faith perspective - his knowledge and close walk with God - knowing God is Sovereign and Providential - that nothing happens without His causing or allowing it - and from his human perspective as a soul tormented by evil spiritual and human forces.  While Job acknowledges God's role in His tragedy, the godly man knows the wickedness of his human tormentors and calls them on it.  This is why I love this book.  We witness both the faith and flesh struggle of Job and then see and hear the great, immortal words of his faith winning over the oppression, persecution and torment of the evil in both the spiritual and earthly realms.  His plea is answered; his magnum opus of faith is written in the most sold book in the history of the world - in the very Word of God; his paean to God sings the soul and spirit of every believer down through the ages and stands sentinel to all we proclaim and know as New Testament believers.

In some respects Job was called upon to show greater faith than we are, for he looked forward in faith, whereas we look back to Jesus' first coming with a great amount of evidence to support the fact that He indeed walked this earth.  Yet whether I look back on Jesus' first coming or forward by faith to His second coming, He is eternally mine!  And I am His!  This glorious revelation that He is "my Redeemer," and that I am His, should evoke the following prayer within me:  'May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.' Ps. 19:14

Jim Reimann commentary on Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening