8-4-14. Job 17:1-16. Hold Onto Faith – my devotional

Job 17:1-16                                                                                                        Kevin E. Jesmer

Key verse 17:7-9                                                                                                8-4-14

“7 My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow. 8 The upright are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly. 9 Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.”

Dear Lord, illuminate my heart with your word. Help me to grow in knowledge of you. Build up my soul with wisdom from your word. I pray in the strengthening name of Jesus Christ.

Part 1:  Hold Onto Unwavering Hope In God (1-10)

Look at verses 1-10, “1 My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me. 2 Surely mockers surround me; my eyes must dwell on their hostility. 3 “Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me? 4 You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore you will not let them triumph. 5 If anyone denounces their friends for reward, the eyes of their children will fail. 6 “God has made me a byword to everyone, a man in whose face people spit. 7 My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow. 8 The upright are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly. 9 Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger. 10 “But come on, all of you, try again! I will not find a wise man among you.” (NIV)

Job suffering continued. He became a joke throughout the entire region, a man in whose face people spit. Even the upright men, upon viewing his terrible plight, will be astonished and will surely think that he is guilty of some great sin. Even the innocent ones, little children, will think the Job is being punished because he is a hypocrite and therefore duly punished. This misunderstanding by society’s morally upright people, being falsely considered guilty, is one of the heaviest loads of all to bear for any person. We all want to be admired and considered upright and righteous. The accusations of the friends were contributing to Job’s inner anguish and his demise as much as his physical disabilities were contributing to his looming death.

More counseling 101: We can learn more lessons about Christian counseling through the dialogue with Job and his friends. If we are not following God’s wisdom, then we can actually be contributing to peoples’ despair. Job’s three friends had a reputation of being wise, but Job could not find wisdom in any of them. Their counseling efforts did not work. They were even causing damage. Read what Job was say in verses 1-4, “1 My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me. 2 Surely mockers surround me; my eyes must dwell on their hostility. 3 “Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me? 4 You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore you will not let them triumph.” God backed up Job’s claim in 43:7, where he condemned these men for their false portrayal of him.

What was their basic problem? These men had a false view of wisdom. But how? They assumed that because they were prosperous and successful, God must be pleased with how they were living and thinking. And because Job was suffering, he must be guilty of some sort of sin. It is kind of a “cause and effect” sort of belief system. Since Job was powerless to change…their counseling was driving him into deeper despair. In some ways, these friends were preaching a “health and wealth” type of gospel. (Sometimes people who say that those who speak in tongues are more spiritual and more blessed by God, are drifting into this realm of teaching.) This form of the gospel is dangerous for it makes helpless sinners feel eternally condemned when they are unable to pull themselves up by the boot straps themselves. It makes those who can achieve something with their human strength appear more spiritual, while those who concede they cannot even move themselves, appear as hypocrites and under the wrath of God. This throws a lot of people into despair, depression and fear, for God does not deal with us like this. He is full of grace and mercy to powerless sinners who need his love and salvation.

But despite the friends’ mistakes in counseling, God was leading Job in the right direction. Look at verse 3 again. “Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me?” Job is still looking to God. He is coming to the conclusion that what is needed to procure his forgiveness is something that is provided by God. Job can not save himself, but God can provide the means for him to be saved. God did provide the pledge he demands…it was his One and Only Son, Jesus. John 3:16 reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 1:29 reads, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”  (NIV)

I thank God for carefully and personally unraveling the knots in our hearts to lead us to saving faith. It takes time to unravel the knots. It takes time to heal and to see things from God’s point of view. But God is there helping us to see his glory and show us the path to come to him, despite bad counselors. Ultimately the best counselor is God himself, by his Holy Spirit. But we do need human counselors at times.

Let’s take a lesson from this as we seek to counsel others. Are our words of counsel actually hurting others? Are we doing more damage than good? Would it be altogether better to remain quiet and pray and lovingly serve others? We need to get a firm grip on what we are preaching. It needs to be the liberating and life giving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sets helpless sinners free by his power and grace.

People of faith will never let go of Jesus, even if they can not understand the suffering they are going through at the present moment. In Job 17: 7-9, Job declares his unwavering hope in God despite his suffering. “7 My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow. 8 The upright are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly. 9 Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.”  Earthly success and prosperity are not proof of faith in God. Likewise, trouble and affliction do not prove faithlessness in the Almighty. The truly wise person knows that wisdom comes from God alone, and does not originate from human successes and failures. That implies that receiving blessings in this life is tied to our own human efforts. It also makes us loose hope in God when we become mired in our own suffering. We are tempted to abandon God in our despair because we think that God has forever abandoned us. And since we are helpless to get ourselves out of our troubles, then there is no way to be saved.

A truly wise person never looses hope in God’s long arms of salvation. They also never forsake God, no matter what happens to them in this life. Such a person worships the Lord, in season and out of season. In the Temples 2014 CD, “Against The Grain”, one song states that even if heaven were a small, enclosed white room, if Jesus is there, that will be enough. In the valleys and in the deep wells, Jesus and his light shines brighter. In our sufferings, if Jesus is there, then there is hope. On the same CD there is a song where the chorus says, “I can not move….MOVE ME.” The person confesses that he is helpless, but they never loose hope in God. They know that God is able and willing to move us when we are not able to move ourselves.

Good is coming out of all of Job’s struggles. In the midst of all his strife and false counsel of his friends, Job was driven to the Lord. His prayer of faith could be summarized as follows; “Lord, you are the only one to whom I can look for salvation from my suffering. You are the only one who can provide what is needed for me to be forgiven and set free.”  Job also comforts himself with the idea that “karma” will return upon the heads of his friends, that is, they will pay for all the emotional suffering and anguish they have caused by their false representation of God and his word.  Job says that these friends can repeat their arguments as often as they wish, but he notes that not a wise word has been found, and it is because they do not know God. Job will not allow these individuals, to deter him from taking hold of God. In fact, the accusations will only make his faith stronger.

Are your sufferings in life making you stronger or are they breaking you down? We may be in the midst of some horrible times. Each day may have more than enough troubles. But like Job, we must never give up our quest for answers from God. Though our thoughts may not be completely correct, if we keep seeking and holding onto Jesus with a humble heart, he will make the paths straight, the mountains low and he will fill in the valleys. This is our faith as God’s people.

Part 2: Never Give Up On God. He Never Gives Up On You. (11-15 )

Verses 11-15 read, “11 My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart 12 turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near. 13 If the only home I hope for is the grave,  if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness, 14 if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’ 15 where then is my hope— who can see any hope for me? 16 Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?” (NIV)

Doubt, unbelief, accusations, and condemnation, offered by these “friends” were actually doing the work of Satan, attempting to bring night and darkness into Job’s life. His friends are saying that he has no hope in God. Job knows that if he listens to the words of these friends, their words are actually going to kill him. There is no greater sin than a person can commit than the sin of denying the hope laid out in the word of God to any individual. Are our words a blessing or a curse?

Job may be giving up on the misdirected counseling of his friends, and even giving up on ever being restored in this world, but he was not giving up on his hope in the Lord. Look at verses 11-12, “My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart 12 turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near.”  He knows that God has the power to turn his night in to day and his darkness into light. Jesus is the light of the world. Whoever has faith in him will never walk in darkness but have the light of life. (John 8:12) Job is coming to know this through his inner quest to know God and seek salvation in him. Indeed those who seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, as first priority, even in suffering, will be spiritually blessed. (Matt 6:33)

Why doesn’t God step and make everything right, right away? He could. But the problem lies within ourselves. Our hearts are full of tangled webs that we have woven for ourselves. We hold onto our prejudices and preferences. We have our own hopes and gripes from things in the past. We have millions of life experiences that need unraveling. Think about getting knots out of a garden hose. Do you just yank on the hose thinking the knots will come out? No. You do it slowly and carefully. God is dealing with our tangled hearts slowly as he is doing with Job.

Prayer: “Lord, help me to never give up seeking your wonderful face. I know that the answers are found in you alone. Only in you, can my night be turned to day and my tangled heart be set free.”

One Word: Jesus is the Light of the world. He turns our darkness into Light.