October 3, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Job? Here’s today’s reading:
Job 14 (NIV)
1“Mortals, born of woman,
are of few days and full of trouble.
2 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
3 Do you fix your eye on them?
Will you bring them before you for judgment?
4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!…..Continue Reading
Job seems to wrestle with the idea of afterlife in this chapter. “if a man dies, shall he live again?”
We have assurance of heaven since the death and resurrection of Jesus but Job did not have that here. He seemed envious of nature and how a tree dies and is reborn through it’s roots but to him he saw man unable to live on and instead death was just an end.
He desired for his death to bring restoration to his relationship with God, longing for something better after the pain of this life. Made me think of all the people who don’t have the confidence we do in an after life with God. That to them this world just ends when we die and how do you live with no hope of something better. Makes trials seem so much more overwhelming! We know this is just a blink of an eye compared to eternity with Christ and therefore the trials are so much easier to endure with an eternal mindset!
Job says wise words here in verses 4,5. [ Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. Not one. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee.] He says that all our days are numbered by God. Only He knows our time on earth. Else where in scripture we are told to number our days. Psalm 90;12 [So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.] Ephesians 5;15,16. [ See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.] Because we only have so long to live we should be using our time wisely. The reference to who can bring something clean out of something unclean is that we are all sinners and fall short of His Glory. Romans 3;23. Also in Isaiah 64;6 [ But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.] There are a few other statements here by Job. He is talking about once man dies he doesn`t come back but is in the grave, Verses 10, 12, 13, 14. We know he had a deep faith in God and that he may had thought he would be with God with his spirit but do we know if he knew he would have a Resurrected body. For he didn`t have all the scripture that we have now. He only would of had the first 5 books of the Bible. I might be forgetting some scriptures that mention this. In my old age I am forgetting things. So Pastor can you shed some light on this. God bless us as we grow and learn together.
Glad you searched and found the answer, Dennis!
I was just reading ahead up through chapter 19 and I think I found the answer to my question. Verses 25,26,27. [ For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me.]
(By the way, I probably should have said this yesterday with my first post…hi! I’m Sean! My wife Megan and I live in North Kingstown with our family, and plan to come visit you all this Sunday. I really appreciate you making this bible study available to the public, it is great to get into the Word with you all!)
Great comment, Kelly! You really have to feel for Job here. He is under such intense testing and trial, to the point that he wishes for death that he might be relieved of it. But at the same time, he knows that his hope is the Lord, and while he wishes to be be hidden in the grave so as to avoid his current sufferings, he wants to return to the Lord as well, knowing that God cherishes His children! He definitely wonders about resurrection here, believing that perhaps he could die, but that God would renew him because God would long for the creature His hands have made. And yet, isn’t that what we experience in Jesus? That simply because God loves us, He sees fit to send His only Son, to make a way for us, through the atonement of our sins, that we might be rejoined to our Creator, our Father? In verse 4, Job seems to wonder how that can happen, since no one can bring a pure thing out of what is impure.
But we, on the other side of the cross, know that God can do that. Hebrews 10:19-22 brings such hope and clarity…you wish that Job had had full knowledge of the grace that was to be given through Jesus!
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Who can bring what is pure from the impure? God can. That’s who! “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Eph 2:10. Amen!
Welcome Sean! I and I imagine the rest of us here look forward to meeting you Sunday! Thanks for joining us here!
Job 9-14
Life is short and full of suffering. I’m getting depressed reading Job. But certainly don’t blame him. Sounds like I’m verses 14-15. He is unsure of eternal life. Thank God we live when we do. And we have the comfort of the word of God. Your life is but a mist and then disappears. If job only had a New Testament bible. To endure suffering knowing that we will be raised! Because I live you also will live. John 14:19. Thinking this week of the seasons. When a drought comes a trees roots drive deeper into the ground to find water. As suffering will drive us deeper into dependence on God.
Job 14
How desperate and despairing Job is and in many ways rightly so. But he does the right thing by bringing his deep sadness to God and at least seek for any consolation that can be found in Him. He has such a firm grasp on the nature of God that he can’t help but have a measure of hope that God is bigger than the mess he is in and has to have some provision in it and for it. And yet he then facilities to despairing comments that shows his keen awareness of the pain he is feeling and he would do just about anything to be freed from it. He recognizes God’s sovereign hand and His forgiving nature, but then talks of God hounding him for the sake of causing him misery. It really is a message to remain firmly in the truth and even if hard circumstances do come, we can feel the fullness of emotion in it and yet cling to the reality and hope that is found in our great God. As Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, we grieve but not like the rest of men who have no hope.
Job 14
Job 12
Job 13
Job speaks of the defined limit of life that God knows and determines.
He does seem to hint at future possibilities, almost prophetic:
– being “hidden” from God’s wrath until it passes?
– having a set life span, but then “remembered” by God in the future?
– If a man dies, shall he live again? life again,
– Till my change comes – change coming – new bodies? (1 Corinthians 15 – not all shall sleep but all shall be changed)
– Iniquities covered – in Christ?
“Oh, that You would hide me in the grave,
That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past,
That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If a man dies, shall he live again?
All the days of my hard service I will wait,
Till my change comes.
You shall call, and I will answer You;
You shall desire the work of Your hands.
For now You number my steps,
But do not watch over my sin.
My transgression is sealed up in a bag,
And You cover my iniquity.
Job 14
Who can bring what is pure from the impure? Jesus can! Surely then you will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin. Yes Job, God will do this through his son Jesus.