#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 11

Jan11

Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  (You can also listen to an audio recording.) It only takes a few minutes and you will be blessed.

Day 11 – Job 29-31 (and then the words of Job ends)

 Today is the end of Job speaking until his confession in the last, short chapter. (Next up is the #4 “Friend” who waxes eloquent for four chapters!!!)

In chapter 29, Job remembers “the good old days” before all this tragedy fell on him.  It was the days when, “God watched over me,” when “the friendship with God was upon my tent,” when “my children were all around me,” and “my steps were washed with butter.”  WOW.

Job goes on to reminisce about when he was respected and honored, when, at his presence young men withdrew and aged rose and stood.  Ahhhh, those were the days, my friend; I thought they’d never end….. (You can almost hear him sigh.)

He lists all the good he did for neighbor and country. He bemoans the time when men “listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel.”

“But NOW… (in chapter 30 he tells how things have changed).  “now they laugh at me.”  “I have become their song, a byword to them.”  And even, “they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.”  What a downfall, what a humbling: to see how it is when men forsake you.

But his anquish is worse when he turns to his God.  “God has cast me into the mire….”  “I cry to You for help and You do not answer me; I stand and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me….”

Have you ever been in such dispair?  Have you wailed against your God?  I confess, I have not. I’ve complained and whined. God has sometimes seemed silent and distant to me. But never like Job.

Then in chapter 31, it’s as if he gathers himself, straightens up a little and begins to claim his righteousness, how he is undeserving of such a fate. Beginning with verse five, he lists a dozen or more  “if-then” scenarios.  If I had done such and such… then may such and such befall me.

At one point he says “Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!)

Whoa, Job. Be careful what you wish!

Tomorrow we will endure Elihu (4th friend) going on and on. THEN…  God will speak.

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 10

Jan10

Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  (You can also listen to an audio recording.) It only takes a few minutes and you will be blessed.

   Day 10 – Job 24-28  (Whoa, 5 chapters today. Hang in there!)

Job begins with two “why” questions. I find myself asking those kinds of questions all the time. But if we really knew the “reason” for things that happen to us, would we be content? (see later in this post)  What we really want, I think, is that the “why” questions we ask God will make the trials go away!

In most of chapter 24, Job lists the things that very nasty people do – cruel and lewd people, thieves, drunks, adulterers, greedy, heartless, murderers. “Deep darkness is morning to them. They are friends with the terrors of deep darkness.” 

This reminds me of Jesus’s words to Nicodemas in John 3:19-20, “And this is the judgment: that light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” 

But their end will come, assures Job.

Bildad speaks briefly for the third and last time. Basically that God is majestic and exalted, man is sinful, especially Job.  Job responds, saying he KNOWS how great God is. (He even declares something WAY before Copernicus (1543) radically claimed it — that “the earth hangs on nothing.”  Yay, Job!)

In chapter 27 Job keeps responding to the claims of his three “friends.”  He stands in his integrity. He holds fast to his righteousness. His heart does not reproach him. (God told the devil this in chapter 1)

Wisdon is Job’s theme in chapter 28. He asks several times where it is found. Not it the wealth and jewels of the earth, not in the majestic beasts of the earth. (A companion read would be Proverbs 1 – 3)  No, wisdom and understanding lie only with God. “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” (28:28)

 

I happened to listen this morning to a sermon by John MacArthur titled “The Purpose of Trials.”  It seemed to fit well in the reading of Job, although he does not reference the book, but others from Deuteronomy to 2 Peter. 

Here are the “reasons” he suggests for the godly to suffer.

     1. to test our faith (so WE know it)

     2. to humble us so we don’t think more of our own strength tham we should

     3. to wean us away from worldly things

     4. to call us toward a Heavenly (not earthly) hope

     5. to reveal what we really love

     6. to teach us to value the blessings of God

     7. to enable us to help others in their suffering

     8. to develope endurng strength for greater usefulness for God’s glory. 

If you’d like to hear the whole 30 minute message, click  on THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING.

 

 

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 9

Jan9

Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  (You can also listen to an audio recording.) It only takes a few minutes and you will be blessed.

Day 9 – Job 21-23

Job asks them to listen to him for a minute and then they can mock him again. He comes back on Zophar’s statement in the previous chapter that “the wicked suffer” with “the wicked prosper.” (21:7-16).  He sounds complaining and wistful and even sarcastic.

His ending, “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.” would seem to stop his friends, but Eliphaz is back for round 3 with more condemnation.

However in 22:21-23, it almost sounds like Eliphaz is giving the Gospel. “Agree with God and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. Receive instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty you will be buillt up;”  but then he goes on to advice that Job “remove injustice from his tent.”

Job responds, speaking of God, “I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion of food.” (23:12)

Job wishes that he could lay his case and argue before God. (Oh, Job, be careful what you wish for!)  But still, he rests in God’s soveignty. (23:13-14) “He will complete what He appoints for me,”

I love the promise of 1 Peter 5:10, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

It’s a promise that will be seen in Job’s own life at the end, but not yet.  Persevere through 19 more chapters. They get glorious in the knowledge of the Almighty, and a good ending for Job.

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, days 7 & 8

Jan8
       Day 7 & 8 — (I combine Sunday and Monday reads.)  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  You can also listen to an audio recording. It only takes a few minutes.
Job 14-16
Our guy Job begins the chapter with, “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble,” and you might agree with him.
Did you know Moses agreed too?  Psalm 90:10 says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”
Next in this sad saga, old Eliphaz (Friend #1, in this second round) comes back with more unkind and mistaken condemnation of Job (15). Job (16) says Eliphaz is not much of a friend. He calls him a “miserable comforter,” a blow-hard talking about what he knows nothing about!!
Then Job laments more about his suffering. He accuses God of shattering, shaking, shooting at, and slicing him.   (Just imagine his pain from that horrible skin ailment, that he must constantly scrape scabs/puss away with broken pottery.)
And I complain about a bit of arthritus or allergy! God forgive me.
Job 17-20
(Yes, I know it’s Monday. It’s been a  whole week since we began. We are still in Job! And it’s depressing!  Oh, please don’t quit. Carry on.  Persevere. Endure to the end (of Job, and the Bible!!)
Job is again thinking of death (Wouldn’t YOU if you were enduring all this and without compassionate understanding?). But if he dies, then he asks, “Where then is my hope?”  Oh, Job, remember your words in chapter 13! “Though He slay me, I will hope in HIM,“
Then Bildad (friend #2, in this second round) takes the “podium” and accuses Job of more badness. He asks why Job thinks they are “stupid” in his sight. (Well, duh!)  Bildad waxes eloquent about the “wicked” intimating that this is what poor Job is, ending that it is just the place of the person who knows not God.  (Don’t you wish he could review those first verses in the book that describe Job as upright and blameless?)
Job fervently answers his accuser(s) in chapter 19, “How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?”  Yeah! What happened to the concept – “weep with those who weep”?  (Romans 12:15)  But as in a few other places, Job’s soul rises to God and he exclaims, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God,” (19:25)  Wow.
Despite, Job’s gasping faith, his third friend, Zophar, cuts him down with, “The wicked will SUFFER!”
We’ve not heard the last of these three “friends,” and even a fourth one will appear in chapter 32 who at first rebukes the others, but then hammers down on Job too.  (Oh, just wait and see how God will treat these guys at the end of chapter 42.  (You can peek at it now, but it will be more satisfying when we get there.)
KEEP READING! Remember the blessing God promised to those who read His word.

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 6

Jan6
Day 6.  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  You can also listen to an audio recording. It only takes a few minutes.
Job 10-13
(Keep faithfully reading. We are 1/4 the way through Job.)

Do you ever cry out to God and complain about things that are happening in your life?  “It’s NOT FAIR,” I’ve said many times. “Why did You DO such and such?” Or, “Why did You LET that happen???”

I think if we were actually standing before God Himself, we would be more like Isaiah (chapter 6) who fell on his face before the Almighty, like a dead man.  But, we, like Job, cry out our complaints to God and He doesn’t strike us dead.  He loves us!

“Why did you bring me out of the womb?” Job cries in pain and despair in 10:18. “Would that I had died before any eye had seen me.”  (Before you judge him, remember that he has lost ALL his children, ALL his wealth, ALL his health. And his wife wishes him dead.)

Then Zophar (friend #3) starts in on him, the worst “friend” so far.  He basically tells Job that he is even WORSE than he thinks. “Know that God exacts of you LESS than your guilt deserves,” 11:8.

WOW!  That’s LOW.

In 11:12, Zophar calls Job “stupid” and a “wild ass.”  Yikes!

In his response in chapter 12, Job gets a bit sarcastic. “No doubt you,” he says to his friends, “are THE people and wisdom will die with you.”  He’s amazed that he is a ‘laughingstock” to them. He, who has called to God and God answered him, a “just and blameless man.”  “Am I a laughingstock?” he asks.

Then Job goes on in that chapter to praise God and His absolute sovereignty in everything.

In 13:15 Job speaks those magnificent words of trust, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”  WOW

A roller-coaster, that is Job in this book, in his pain, among his friends. He will get lower. He will go higher before he actually confronts the living and Almighty God. Then we will see Job truly humbled AND lifted up.

So, don’t give up, keep reading each day!

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 5

Jan5
  Day 5.  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  You can also listen to an audio recording. It only takes a few minutes.
Job 6-9

(yes, I know, it’s hard).

Job’s friends who were so saintily silent, commisserating with Job in his misery and sorrow, now speak. (They shouldn’t have!!)

Job had indulged in a hopeless monologue, wishing he hadn’t been born. (Have you and I ever felt like that in a really tough situation of loss or extreme pain?)

When Eliphaz (friend #1) finally speaks, it’s not with compassion, but with a bossy tone, saying Job MUST have done something really bad, because, you know, God BLESSES the “innocent”……

Um, not always so, Eliphaz. The righteous DO suffer.

And Job actually points to something else. “Behold, BLESSED is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.” (Reminds you of Psalm 94:13-14 and Hebrews 12:5-6, doesn’t it?)

Job also says something seriously that reminds me of some of MY nights, “But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.” He, however, is suffering immensely, whereas I am NOT.

Yes, he is depressed. Wouldn’t YOU be? And yet his “friends” keep at it. Bildad (friend #2), tells Job that his days will be good again, he just needs to REPENT of his sin. (Huh? godly & blameless Job?)

I know NONE of us are sinless, but these horrors did not happen to Job BECAUSE he sinned. They are ultimately for God’s glory. (Kind of like the story of the man born blind that Jesus healed in John 9:3)

In chapter 9, Job first praises God Amighty, then yells at Him, and then in horror, backtracks.

Poor guy! Remember, HE doesn’t know what WE know. We saw that diabolical deal the devil made in Heaven’s courtroom with the holy, righteous God; that deal to ruin Job, and dishonor his God.

Don’t give up, keep reading tomorrow!

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#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 4

Jan4

Day 4. Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  It only takes a few minutes.

Read Job 1 – 5.

“There was a man in the land of Uz….” It begins almost like a Fairy Tale.

Look at the FOUR THINGS verse 1 says about Job’s character?

Wow! He was blameless. He was upright. He feared God. He turned away from evil.

Notice his WEALTH!  Today he’d be a millionaire (or even a billionaire).  A godly man whom God blessed tremendously.

Riches = righteousness, right?  Wrong!  When Jesus told His disciples that it was very hard for a rich man to enter heaven, they were aghast.  “Who then can be saved?” they cried. This was after a rich, young, ruler asked Jesus how he could be saved. (Matthew 19:16-26)  Jesus told him, and later the disciples, that the answer was to come to Him and follow Him.

It seems Job was on the right track – watch what happens when he later  loses it all.

Also notice Job’s HEART for his children. Daily he would “atone for their possible sins” by sacrificing. Hmmm. Do I even PRAY daily for my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids? Do you?

Then, by Satan’s hand, and God’s sovereign and limited allowing, the UNTHINKABLE happens to job, from both (1) evil people and (2) nature. (Did you see which did what?)

What are YOUR thoughts about God’s sovereignty in the acts of evil men and unanticipated acts of nature (lightning strikes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) that harm and even kill people?

How did Job think about it?  Verses 1:20-22 are AMAZING!!

Of course things get worse. (Satan is never happy until he kills us or makes us deny our God.) Job’s own body and his own wife betray him. What was his response? See 2:10  This man is amazing. His heart was toward God.

OK, then come Job’s “friends.” In 2:11-13 what GOOD things did they do? If you wonder how you can help someone sick or dying, in the hospital, or who has lost a loved one… THIS is the answer.

In chapters 3-5 (and beyond) things get “poetic” and kind of depressing, both from Job and each of his friends. (Tough reading, but look for real emotions, true wisdom, and VERY BAD conclusions/counsel.)

YOU are BLESSED when you read God’s Word! (Rev. 1:3) Don’t give up on it, or Job.  Keep reading.

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 3

Jan3

Day 3.  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  It only takes a few minutes.

Genesis 8-11
Did you realize that Noah and his family and all the representative animals stayed INSIDE THE ARK for a year AFTER the 40 days of rain??? Wow.
Did they doubt they would ever see dry land again and stop that bobbing in the water? Did they fear that God had abandoned them?  Do I sometimes fear that too?
Well, He hadn’t, and in fact He gave them a fresh new world to live in and populate. And all living creatures could now be food! Yum, fried chicken, bbq spare ribs, grilled steak, and sauteed grasshoppers! And oh, wow, they would now see RAINBOWS (the natural kind) and so remember God’s faithfulness every time it rained.
Of course they blew it too (like I do every day).
Also, there are more genealogies and hard-to-pronounce names to read. (Don’t give up.)  Did you notice names like:
—Tarshish, Egypt, Caanan, Sheba?
—Shinar, Nineveh, Babel?
—Gaza, Sodom & Gomorrah, Philistines?
—Eber (beginning of the Hebrews), Nahor, Terah, Abram & Sarai? Lot?
All these will come up as we go through the Bible. Can you think of stories already that are set in these places and with these people?
—And Uz. Did you notice Uz?
Beginning tomorrow and the following 11 days, Uz is where we will be in our reading.
HUH? you say. How’s that?  Well Uz is where Job lived, and he lived about this time in Bible history, so we will visit him, his woes, his wife, his friends(??), his epiphanies, and his (and our) God.
Please don’t say “ugh” to Uz.  Stay with me! I know we will learn some truths from the book of Job. And then we’ll return to the Patriarchs on January 16.
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#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 2

Jan2

Day 2.  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  You can also listen to an audio recording. It only takes a few minutes.

Genesis 4-7
In the story of Cain and Able, we see some  fruit of their parents’ sin. Cain’s feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, anger, a refusal to listen to God’s warning, and ultimately murder, caused him to be cursed by God.
Could righteous Able be a foreshadowing of the death of Christ in some ways?
Adam and Eve experienced the loss of both their sons, because God sent Cain away. But see how faithful He is to the grieving parents with the birth of Seth, the progenitor of the Messaiah, the eventual One who will crush the serpent’s head.
People sometimes wonder where Cain got his wife and, for that matter, where all of Adam & Eve’s other children got their spouses. For the answer, see Genesis 3:20. (And remember the early people were fresh from the hand of God, lived hundreds of years in comparable health, and did not have all the DNA problems we have today.) Incest was not forbidden until God gave Israel the law at Mt Sinai. (Leviticus 20:17)
And look closely at the ages of Methuselah and his son, Lamech.  They died the year of the flood….possibly IN the flood. (God’s mercy or judgement?)
Lastly, do you ever wonder why only the air-breathing land creatures were annihilated in the flood, and not all the sea creatures too?  I have an idea…. think of all the corpses of men and beasts.  Shark fest!! Cleaning up the corruption!
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2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically

Jan1

Day 1.  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  I use the ESV (English Standard Version), but you read in the one you love. You can also listen to an audio recording.

Begin with Genesis 1-3.
This tells the story of our magnificent, all-powerful, all knowing, forever existing, triune God creating everything – including all the building blocks that even impact our society today in a matter of six days.  And He did it with just His words. (Jesus is THE Word, He was part of creation. Also see in the beginning verses that the Holy Spirit had a part.)
God created mankind too with his hands and breathed into him the breath of life. Then he took a part of Adam and made a woman. (Adam was very wowed when he first saw her!!)  God placed this pair in the Garden of Delight (what Eden means), to easily take care of it and to eat all the fruit, veggies, and grains that they wanted – just by picking it.
Two special trees were in the garden. The tree of life – which the design of the menorah in later history pictured – and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (NOT evil itself).  And you know “the rest of the story.” Before they hardly got started living there…. before they had any children…. they disobeyed, and now we all bear the imprint of their sin.
I saw a curious fact in their temptation. Compare 1:26-27 with 3:5. How did the serpent twist what Adam and Eve already were?
Oh, LORD, keep me from sinning with my heart, my eyes, and my words today.  You have given me all I need for life and godliness.
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