Teaching Notes

TH1082: JOB

As we continue our study in the book of Job, we find Job right in the middle of a devastating trial that has come upon his life. This wealthy, prosperous, blessed man, saw all his possessions and his 10 children taken away from him in one day. Then his health is taken away. And all that Job is looking for is some comfort, someone that would help him through this very difficult time.

And with that we see Job's three friends come to comfort him, but instead of comfort, they are condemning Job. Eliphaz was very eloquent with his words, but they were not encouraging, only judgmental. Bildad was brutal as he blasts Job for not being as innocent as he tries to make others believe. And now Job's third friend, Zophar, comes on the scene and he is not any better. Zophar blasts Job with stinging sarcasm as we will see tonight as we look at Job chapter 11.

JOB 11

VERSES 1-2

1. Zophar is telling Job that even with all your words, you are not going to be able to justify yourself.

VERSES 3-6

1. Zophar is not going to let Job get away with his empty words, for the things that have come upon Job's life shows that Job is not "pure", that his eyes are not "clean" before God. Zophar does not believe Job for one minute. In fact, he is calling to God to show Job all the evil that is in him, that secret sin that has brought this upon his life. And just to let Job know how spiritual he is, he tells Job that God has spoken to him and has shown him that Job has only received half of what he deserved. If God would give you what you deserve, it would be twice as bad for Job.

2. Now that is partly true, none of us get what we deserve. You see, we deserve death, all of us, but God has given us eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ. God is gracious and God is merciful for He has given us heaven when we deserve hell! But at this point in Job's life, he did not need a sermon but compassion, which he was not getting from his friends.

VERSE 7

1. In the King James Version this verse is better translated "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" The answer to that question may surprise you. No we can't find God by our searching because He is not lost, we are! And God is the good shepherd who goes looking for His sheep. Jesus said in John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him..." God is the initiator and we are only responding to what He has begun. God is not discovered through our intelligence but He is spiritually discerned. Paul said in I Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

2. Secondly, there is no way we can fully understand an infinite God with our finite minds. As the Lord said in Isaiah 55:8-9 "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.'" In knowing that, understand that you are going to have things occur in your life that you are not fully going to understand, you can't intellectually understand what God is doing and why He is doing it. That is when you have to walk by faith and not by sight, trusting that God knows what is best for your life. We are going to see that God will never answer Job's "why's", but He is trying to stretch Job's faith, getting Job to trust in God even though Job may not fully understand why all this is happening.

VERSES 8-12

1. God knows those that are deceitful and those who are honest, you can't fool Him. And because of Job's claims of innocence, Zophar is calling him a nitwit, a person who's head has been hallowed out. And if Job continues down this path of faulty reasoning, deceiving himself, he will never be wise. Well, I should not say never, Zophar says that he will obtain wisdom when a man is born from a wild donkey! I think he is being a little sarcastic.

VERSES 13-18

1. Zophar is calling for Job to get right with God, for if he did the sun would shine upon his life once again, a smile would return to his face, and he would be protected from his enemies just as a moat protects those living within the city walls. He is telling Job that all these tragedies would come to an end if he only would get right with God.

VERSES 19-20

1. Job's friends would also return if he got right with God, but if he doesn't, his life will come to an end. Zophar is not one you would call an comforter!

JOB 12

VERSES 1-2

1. Job has had it with these guys. He is saying to them that when they die so to will die all the wisdom in the world. A little sarcastic. But also understand where Job's friends were coming from. They were trying to figure out the way's of God with their finite minds and they came to the conclusion that sin equals punishment and obedience equals blessing. But that is only partially true, and yet it allows them to package their theology very neatly, even though they are wrong.

2. Also, they were coming off as "Mr. know-it-all's" when the reality of this situation was that they did not know what they were talking about. I think as people grow in the Lord they find out two important facts, how sinful we really are compared to a holy and righteous God, and how little we really know compared to our omniscient or all-knowing God. Only a fool thinks he is better than he is or smarter than he is.

VERSE 3

1. Job lashes out at their pride as he tells them that he understands just as much as they do, that he has not heard anything earth shattering from their speeches.

VERSES 4-5

1. It seems very hard for these guys to be compassionate to Job when things are going well in their own life. They were making themselves out as righteous, for they were blessed. And they were making Job unrighteous for he was cursed. Those who came to comfort him were only mocking him. But Job was calling for these guys to have some compassion on him, for what if this was happening to them?

VERSE 6

1. Notice Job's argument against their counsel. They had their pat theological answers to why this was happening to Job, but Job calls for them to apply that to the real world and see if it still holds water. And he shows them that it doesn't, for the robbers are still prospering, the unrighteous seem to live in comfort, they seem to be blessed. God is merciful.

VERSES 7-9

1. Job is saying that creation itself is crying out that there is a God who created all of this. Every creature knows this except man who has taken God out of the picture and points to some primordial slime pool where life evolved from non-life! Creation itself shows us that there is a designer, a creator, a God!

VERSE 10

1. Every breath we take is a gift of God. Paul said in Acts 17:28 "for in Him we live and move and have our being..." God controls our very lives. Remember the story of the fall of Babylon. Belshazzar, king of Babylon has this drunken party and brought out the drinking vessels that were used in the temple to praise and worship the God of Israel, and they began to worship their gods with them. And during this party God wrote on the wall "..."MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN." And Belshazzar had no idea what it meant but he knew he was in trouble. In fact, he was so scarred that the King James Version says that his knees smote together, his knees were knocking against each other. And the kings grandmother tells him that their is one who is from God that can tell you what this writing means as he interpreted dreams in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And as they brought Daniel before the king, he told him that he and his kingdom had been weighed in the balances of God and have come up short. You and your kingdom will be destroyed this very night. And Daniel's rebuke against Belshazzar went like this, "But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified." Yes every breath you take is a gift of God!

VERSES 11-12

1. Age doesn't necessarily make you smarter but it does make you wiser. You are not as quick to jump to conclusions. You realize how much you don't know which should give you more compassion towards others.

VERSES 13-25

1. Job is telling us that God is sovereign over nature, over nations, over the lives of men, He is in control! You can't escape His control! He knows what you are going to do before you do it.

2. As a nation we are staggering like a drunken man, not knowing where we are going, reaching for something to steady ourselves with and yet nothing seems to help. We have tried education, wealth, homes, drugs, sex, all kinds of therapy and-so-on, and nothing seems to help. We are looking for answers to our problems in all the wrong places. When God was removed from this nation back in the 1960's, so too was our stability. Now we don't know what is good and what is evil. A few weeks ago on the television show "Ellen", Ellen Degeneres not only played the role of a lesbian on her show, but was also announcing to the world that in real life she too was a lesbian. And the talk shows and radio shows applauded her courage to do this, especially in a world that is so against it. On the talk show Geraldo, his closing comments went something like this, and I am paraphrasing. "I am sick and tired of Bible thumping, holier than thou people pushing down my throat their hateful ideas!" And I thought that was a very interesting statement.

He is saying that we can do what ever we want, and we should not let our prejudices cloud the picture and cause hate to grow. If it feels good, do it! I wonder if someone came on his show and told him that having sex with children is good and should be encouraged inside and outside the family, I wonder how he would respond. He may say it was wrong, but there are people out there, therapists, who say it is good. And if he would come against this, he is just being hateful and judgmental about it, and he should not push his holier than thou attitude against us. You see, the truth of the matter is we must live by some standards or you would have anarchy. And the Bible, like it or not, tells us what is good and what is evil. And God calls homosexuality evil, along with many other sins, like lying, and-so-on. God doesn't hate the sinner, but loves them and died for them so that they may live. God hates sin. That should be our heart, love the sinner, hate the sin. You see, the only way this nation will be able to stand again is when we turn back to God!

JOB 13

VERSES 1-4

1. Job has had it with their worthless counsel and does not want to hear their empty words any longer. He only wants to hear from God, and he calls them "worthless physicians!"

VERSE 5

1. As I have said before, it is better to keep silent and have people think that you are a fool, than to speak and prove their case! Job is calling for them to be silent, not to speak - that would be their best counsel!

VERSES 6-7

1. Job is speaking to many today who are representing God falsely. Saying that God said this and God said that. For instance "If I don't get X million dollars God is going to kill me!" How ridiculous and how sad to represent God in that manner. Listen to the radio shows, the television shows that are suppose to be Christian, and see how they misrepresent God. It disgusts me when I hear teachers say that God has told them "That there are 15 people here tonight that God told me were going to give $1,000 dollars for my ministry. Stand-up, who are you?"

2. Remember that we all are representing God, although those that are teachers have a bigger responsibility, they are held more accountable. James 3:1 says "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." Jeremiah, prior to the fall of Judah, was dealing with a similar problem as we are dealing with today. False shepherds who were misrepresenting God, they were speaking according to their own desires and not according to God. Listen to what Jeremiah 23:31-32 has to say regarding this. We read "'Behold, I am against the prophets,' says the LORD, 'who use their tongues and say, 'He says.' 'Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,' says the LORD, 'and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all,' says the LORD."

VERSES 8-9

1. Job's friends were speaking for God, and yet their counsel was wrong. You see, they jumped to the wrong conclusions because they did not have all the information they needed. Now just because they did not have all the information, they were still responsible for what they did know and how they used that information. God is going to rebuke them at the end of this book for speaking lies in His name.

2. That does not mean we are not to confront someone who is in sin. If you see someone in sin it must be dealt with. But Job's friends didn't see any sin, thus they came to the wrong conclusion that it was some secret sin that has brought this upon Job. The thing we are not to judge is a persons heart, their motives, only their actions. As Jesus said in John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." We are to judge according to the Word of God!

VERSES 10-12

1. God will reprove them for their false counsel and their empty words, for they were totally meaningless, they were of no help, and most importantly, they were not of God.

VERSES 13-15

1. Job wants to get his words in and then whatever happens, happens. He is still in his cave of despair, living in self pity, but then, out of no where, he makes this statement that is solid. He says "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him..." Even though Job has no idea why this is happening to him, and as unfair as it seems, he is going to trust in God with his life. He can't figure this out, but he is learning to trust God more, his faith is growing. Now things don't always work out as we plan them, but as Paul said in Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

VERSES 16-22

1. Job sees God as his salvation, as Psalm 62:2 says "He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved."

2. Job wants to talk this over with God, but first he is asking God to remove all the adversity that has come upon his life, let him rest for awhile.

VERSES 23-28

1. Job wants God to show him his error and he is logically going back to his youth, when he did make mistakes, he did error, and now is thinking that God is getting back at him for something done back then. Understand this, God brings us through trials to stretch our faith and not to get back at us. But as we go through difficult times, we tend to look back and blame our present situation on what we have done in the past, and that is not always the case, as we see with Job.

JOB 14

VERSES 1-2

1. Man's life is short, even if he lived to be 1,000 years old, when you compare that to eternity.

VERSES 3-5

1. God knows the number of our days, and our prayer should be that we would use that time to the fullest. As Psalm 90:12 says "So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom."

VERSE 6

1. Again Job sees God as his adversary and is saying to God not to waste His time with him. In Job 13:25 we read "Will You frighten a leaf driven to and fro? And will You pursue dry stubble?" Understand that God is not our adversary, but Satan is. Paul said in Romans 8:31 "...If God is for us, who can be against us?"

VERSES 7-13

1. Again, we must remember that Job is not speaking out of revelation, but out of frustrating. Job thinks in death their is peace, like sleep, for the just and the unjust. But in Job chapter 38 we see God rebuke Job for his false ideas about death.

VERSE 14

1. A great question that Job does not answer here, but he does answer in chapter 19, and we will cover that in more detail when we get to that section. But the answer is yes, death is not the cessation of life, but moving from a body of flesh to a spiritual body, both for the just and the unjust. For those in Christ, they will spend eternity with God. For those outside of Christ, they will be eternally separated from Him. Jesus said in John 11:25-26 "...'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?'"

VERSES 15-22

1. Job sees God looking down upon man ready to bring pain and misery into his life. Again, a very distorted picture of God for it is built upon circumstances and not upon the truth, which we have in His Word, the Bible.

2. Next we will see Job's three friends begin all over again with their counsel, starting with Eliphaz.