- The lies that fight us.
- You are not right before God. (obviously conditional)
- Job 4:4-8 Your words have steadied the one who was stumbling and braced the knees that were buckling. But now that this has happened to you, you have become exhausted. It strikes you, and you are dismayed. Isn’t your piety your confidence, and the integrity of your life your hope? Consider: who has perished when he was innocent? Where have the honest been destroyed? In my experience, those who plow injustice and those who sow trouble reap the same.
- Job 5:8-9,18 However, if I were you, I would appeal to God and would present my case to Him. He does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number. 18 For He crushes but also binds up; He strikes, but His hands also heal.
- Your confidence in your (biblically-based) beliefs is arrogance.
- Job 15:8-9 Do you listen in on the council of God, or have a monopoly on wisdom? What do you know that we don’t? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
- You will never atone for the sins of those closest to you.
- Job 8:2,4 How long will you go on saying these things? Your words are a blast of wind. 4 Since your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to their rebellion.
You should not cry out to God in real emotion. - Job 10:18-22 “Why did You bring me out of the womb? I should have died and never been seen. I wish I had never existed but had been carried from the womb to the grave. Are my days not few? Stop it! Leave me alone, so that I can smile a little before I go to a land of darkness and gloom, never to return. It is a land of blackness like the deepest darkness, gloomy and chaotic, where even the light is like the darkness.”
Zophar said… Job 11:2 Should this stream of words go unanswered and such a talker be acquitted?
- Job 8:2,4 How long will you go on saying these things? Your words are a blast of wind. 4 Since your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to their rebellion.
- You should not cry out to God in real emotion. It’s disrespectful to a holy God.
- Job 10:18-22 “Why did You bring me out of the womb? I should have died and never been seen. I wish I had never existed but had been carried from the womb to the grave. Are my days not few? Stop it! Leave me alone, so that I can smile a little before I go to a land of darkness and gloom, never to return. It is a land of blackness like the deepest darkness, gloomy and chaotic, where even the light is like the darkness.”
- Zophar said… Job 11:2 Should this stream of words go unanswered and such a talker be acquitted?
- You are a scourge on society.
- Job 22:2-11 Can a man be of any use to God? Can even a wise man be of use to Him?Does it delight the Almighty if you are righteous? Does He profit if you perfect your behavior? Does He correct you and take you to court because of your piety? Isn’t your wickedness abundant and aren’t your iniquities endless?For you took collateral from your brothers without cause, stripping off their clothes and leaving them naked. You gave no water to the thirsty and withheld food from the famished, while the land belonged to a powerful man and an influential man lived on it. You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you, or darkness, so you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.
- You are not right before God. (obviously conditional)
- Job’s answers
- Job’s answer was to take his case before God rather than the court of fools he was hearing.
- Job 6:21-24 So this is what you have now become to me. When you see something dreadful, you are afraid. Have I ever said: “Give me something” or “Pay a bribe for me from your wealth” or “Deliver me from the enemy’s power” or “Redeem me from the grasp of the ruthless”?Teach me, and I will be silent. Help me understand what I did wrong.
- Job 13:2-5 Everything you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. Yet I prefer to speak to the Almighty and argue my case before God. But you coat the truth with lies; you are all worthless doctors. If only you would shut up and let that be your wisdom!
- A more full answer in Christ.
- In Christ, you are perfect before God.
- Colossians 3:3-4 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
- In Christ, you are entitled to confidence in God’s promises secured through His Cross.
- Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- In Christ, you need not atone for sin– Christ already has!
- Ephesians 1:7-8 We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
- In Christ, you can experience the full range of human emotion with faith as your backdrop.
- Groan in the Spirit Romans 8:26
- Jesus Angry clearing the temple (Mark 11).
- Commands for joy and anger (Be angry and sin not!)
- In Christ, you are a part of society’s only hope.
- Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it.
- In Christ, you are perfect before God.
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