Job Was Chaste (Modified Talk)-Job 31

James 3:17 states that divine wisdom (the wisdom from above) is first of all "chaste" or clean. As we consider Job's example of chasteness tonight, our focus will be on moral and spiritual chasteness. Furthermore, we'll focus on chastity when it comes to our personal behavior and entertainment choices. So let's consider how Job remained chaste, then discuss how we can imitate his example.

Job 31:1 (read): Job made a covenant with his eyes. The Insight book gives this definition for "covenant": "An agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing some act; a compact; a contract." We could equally define covenant as a binding or solemn agreement. The point is that covenant-making is serious; it is not something that we should take take lightly.

Job concluded a contract with his eyes; he refused to look improperly at another woman. Job recognized the strong link between seeing and desiring.

How can imitate Job?

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We too can strike a covenant with our eyes by making a firm resolve to avoid looking at others improperly and we can avoid pornography, which is implicitly designed to stir up improper desire via the eyes.

A second way that we can remain chaste is found in Job 31:2-3 (read).

We need to think about the potential consequences of our actions. Notice the powerful question that Job posed in verse 3.

Before violating Jehovah's laws on fornication or his principles on viewing unclean entertainment, we could ask ourselves, what are the potential consequences of committing porneia? Some of the bad results could be sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, ruined relationships, a guilty conscience and a damaged relationship with Jehovah. Like Job, we need to think seriously about the potential consequences of our actions. Are a few minutes of pleasure worth losing our eternal inheritance?

To further assist us, Job mentions a final safeguard in Job 31:4 (read).

The eyes of Jehovah are everywhere (Proverbs 15:3). If we keep this attitude, it can be a protection for us. Whether at school, at work or alone at home, may we always remember that Jehovah considers our steps and he can read our hearts. 

Job's example teaches us how to remain chaste. An essential part of keeping clean is making a firm resolve to avoid impropriety with our eyes. In line with Job, Jesus later warned that anyone who keeps on looking at a woman so as to have passion for her in his heart has already committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:28). This scripture reveals that chastity is not just a matter of the mind, but it's a heart matter as well. By imitating Job, we'll be happier and experience the joy of pleasing Jehovah our God. 

Bildad in Job 25-The Distortion of Truth

In Job 25, Bildad speaks the truth in a sense, but he distorts matters when he speaks to Job or concerning him: Job 25:6 while true in the abstract must have felt like the pangs of a sword to Job. The rhetorical questions with presupposed negative answers in Job 25:4 are worth quoting: "How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?" (NIV)

Rebecca R. Clark writes:

Finally, Bildad asks, “How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?” (25:4).115 Ash proposes, “This is the answer of human religion. But it is also the satan’s answer.”116 Unbeknownst to Job’s friends, in aiming to proclaim the truth about God, they are spokesmen of the satan.117 Although the satan is not present in the remainder of the narrative, he continues to be voiced.

See  https://firescholars.seu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=mats

 

 

Eliphaz Was Not A Source of Comfort (Modified Talk)

Job was a man in need of comfort: he lost his wealth and property, all of his children were killed, and he was struck with an awful disease that covered his body. Furthermore, Job's family and friends turned against him as they blamed him for all the trouble he experienced.

You probably remember that one of the so-called comforters who came to visit Job was named Eliphaz. Yet did he provide the comfort that Job so badly needed?

Turn with me to Job 15:14-16

(After reading)

Eliphaz insisted that no matter what human servants of Jehovah do, they just can't please him. He claimed that not even the angels or the heavens are pure in Jehovah's eyes--how much less is man! In this way, Eliphaz blamed Job for the calamities he suffered and even worse, he put Jehovah in a bad light.

Today, we have to avoid the trap into which Eliphaz fell. Jehovah's servants must be on guard against thinking that God expects too much from us, and we surely would not want to try encouraging a depressed brother or sister by giving him/her the impression that Jehovah is never pleased with wholehearted service given to him.

Another way that Eliphaz failed to give proper counsel is found in Job 15:20

(After reading)

Did you notice what Eliphaz implied about Job? He indicated that the reason for Job's suffering was his wickedness? How discouraging such counsel must have been. Eliphaz and Job's other friends were supposed to be comforting him, but instead, Eliphaz offered only hurtful words. What a lesson we learn about the need for weighing our words carefully and not speaking thoughtlessly as Proverbs 12:18 warns. Yes, thoughtless words can injure like a sword.

In Job 16:1-2, we see the results that came from the discouraging words of Eliphaz.

Job referred to Eliphaz and the other two men who came with him as "troublesome comforters." Instead of making Job feel better, Eliphaz made him feel worse and he did not speak the truth about Jehovah. Suffering hardship does not necessarily mean that we have displeased God: even righteous people can expect to have tribulation in their life (Psalm 34:14).

While Eliphaz spoke words that did not upbuild or encourage, we on the other hand can speak consoling words to the depressed (1 Thessalonians 5:14). We can offer consolation by sincerely commending others and remind our brothers and sisters of how Jehovah drew them through his Son, so he must love them (John 6:44-45). Jehovah cares for those who are brokenhearted or crushed in spirit and it's good to let our brothers know that he does. In this way, we allow our words to be like soothing ointment that brings comfort in times of distress and we avoid the mistake of Eliphaz.

"If a man dies, shall he live again?"--Job and the Resurrection (Modified Talk)

The well-known "Collins Dictionary" defines death as "the permanent end of the life of a person or animal."

This definition ties in well with the title of our Treasures talk this week: If a man dies, can he live again?

That question, which comes from the book of Job, is a rhetorical question. As we know, rhetorical questions makes us think and they usually have a presupposed answer which is either yes or no. So what about the question, if a man dies, can he live again?

If we consider this question from the human angle, let's see what answer we get from Job 14:1,2, 4, 10. (Read)

Human life is temporary and uncertain like a shadow and it's filled with trouble; humans are powerless to prevent death and once a person dies, no mortal can restore his or her life.

The elixir of immortality: some alchemists in the past tried to produce elixirs that would produce immortality and the Chinese Taoists believed that they could change the body’s chemistry by means of meditation, breathing exercises, special dieting and thus produce human immortality or invulnerability. However, in harmony with the words of Job, none of these things worked. The miraculous fountain of life keeps eluding humanity's grasp, but does this mean that death is permanent as the Collins Dictionary says?

Looking at Job 14:7-9, we find a brighter prospect. (Read)

Maybe Job had the vibrant olive tree in mind when he spoke so assuredly about the dead coming back to life again. Job knew that Jehovah is the God who raises the dead (2 Cor. 1:9). However, not only will Jehovah raise the dead, Job 14:14-15 tells us something else about our God.

After reading

If a man dies, can he live again? Jehovah loves and deeply appreciates his loyal ones: he has a special yearning to raise them from the dead.

The Hebrew word rendered "a yearning" is “unquestionably one of the strongest words to express the emotion of longing desires,” says one scholar. Yes, not only does Jehovah remember his worshippers but he longs to raise them from the dead.

As we think about our picture for tonight and meditation question, I believe we all can give a vibrant "yes" to the rhetorical question that Job posed. Jehovah will call the dead through his Son and the dead will answer by rising to life again.

How Some Commentators View Job 42:11

David Clines (Job 38-42, WBC): The little phrase of the narrator’s, “for all the misfortune that Yahweh had brought on him,” lets slip the fact that neither Job nor his friends ever get to know anything of the events in heaven that precipitated his woes, or anything of the role played by the Satan. On the other hand, if they had known what readers know about the origins of Job’s sufferings, they may still have been inclined to refer to them as “the misfortune that Yahweh had brought on him,” since it was Yahweh who had no doubt been morally responsible for all that had transpired—despite the fact that the Satan was their immediate cause.

John Hartley (The Book of Job, page 541): Like the dialogue, this scene attributes the cause of Job's misfortune to Yahweh. There is no discussion of intermediate causes, for it was believed that Yahweh was the cause of all that takes place.

Norman Habel (The Book of Job, OTL, page 585): Job is now approachable like other mortals; he is no longer the isolated hero challenging heaven with his lawsuits. The misfortunes which Job experienced are here identified as "all the evil" (ra'a) inflicted by Yahweh. The agency of the Satan is now irrelevant. The "evil" Job experienced is indeed the "evil" he acknowledged from Yahweh's hands (2:10; cf. 30:26). God does indeed cause the innocent to suffer evil; such things are part of his cosmic "design."

Robert Fyall (Now My Eyes Have Seen You): Two important expressions crystallize the events as they have unfolded and are yet to happen. Verse 11 speaks of ‘all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him’, and verse 12 says that ‘The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.’ The Lord is the sole cause of all that has happened and will happen. Verses 11–12 raise a number of questions that bear especially on the relationship of God and evil.

Robert Alden (Job, NAC): The first to welcome Job to his restored state were his siblings and friends, presumably the ones who shunned him during the height of his trial (19:13-15). They did what the friends had originally come to do, “comfort and console/sympathize with him” (2:11). “Trouble” is rendered “evil” in the older translations, but the Hebrew word is also the opposite of “prosperity/peace/well-being” as Isa 45:7 indicates.

Greg Welty (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-problem-of-evil/): It is one thing to acknowledge God’s sovereign and purposeful providence over the moral and natural evils mentioned in the Job, Joseph, and Jesus narratives. It is quite another to claim that God is sovereign over all moral and natural evils. But this is what the Bible repeatedly teaches. This takes us a considerable way towards licensing the GGT [greater good theodicy] as a general approach to the problem of evil. The Bible presents multitudes of examples of God intentionally bringing about natural evils – famine, drought, rampaging wild animals, disease, birth defects such as blindness and deafness, and even death itself – rather than being someone who merely permits nature to ‘do its thing’ on its own.