The Bible Recap - Day 004 (Job 1-5) - Year 3

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Today's reading landed us about 400 years post-blood and we met a man named Job. Initially, he sounds a lot like Noah. He's blameless and upright and fears God. In Noah's story, things got really dark and then there was some relief at the end. And we'll see the same type of thing played out in Job's story. Based on our conversation from day two, you might have noticed in today's reading that Job 16 referred to angels as the sons of God,

Starting point is 00:00:39 including Satan who in his created form is an angel. In Job 18, God initiates a conversation about Job with Satan. One thing of note here, the word Satan means adversary, one who resists, accuser. There's some debate about this, but many people believe that Satan is not necessarily a proper name that refers to one being, but that it's a general term referring to God's adversary. In this instance, a fallen angel who opposes God's reign. Later in Scripture, it will have references to a specific fallen angel named Lucifer, but there's reason to believe that the word Satan doesn't always refer specifically to

Starting point is 00:01:17 Lucifer. There are many fallen angels who are God's adversaries. In fact, a lot of people believe that Revelation 12 indicates that one third of all the angels God created ended up rebelling against him and worked cast from heaven. So there are a lot of Satan's. And in fact, if I were to pronounce the word correctly, I would be pronouncing it satan, but I'm not going to try to get too weird here. After God initiates the conversation about Job with one of his enemies, that enemy can cocks a plan to test Job, and we see God allowing it. Here's what's noteworthy in this section.

Starting point is 00:01:52 God didn't create the plan for testing Job, but he allowed it. He wasn't the active agent in the evil perpetrated by Satan, but he was still sovereign over it. And in his mercy, he limited it. Satan was on a leash. He was not allowed to take Job's life. Satan attacked Job in a variety of ways. In 111 through 19, we saw that Job's losses

Starting point is 00:02:14 came twice as acts of men, the subians and the caldians, and twice as acts of nature, fire from heaven and wind. Sidebar, I wonder if fire from heaven is an old school way to refer to lightning. Regardless, God granted Satan the opportunity to influence both of those things, the acts of man and the acts of nature. For God to allow Satan to influence those things

Starting point is 00:02:36 means that God himself is the one who has control over those things. You can't give someone influence over something that isn't in your domain. Job's response to all this trouble here was humble. You can't give someone influence over something that isn't in your domain. Job's response to all this trouble here was humble. Job 122 tells us, in all of this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. In 210, Job acknowledged that everything comes from God's hand, and he received it.

Starting point is 00:03:00 He's handling his grief pretty well, until three of his friends show up on the scene. They came to show him sympathy and comfort, and they did a great job of that during the seven days when they sat in silence with him. The problem was when they started to talk. Maybe you've had friends like that, or maybe you've been a friend like that. There are some really good lessons for us in the book of Job about how to comfort somebody who's experienced loss and trauma. Sitting with him in silence is a pretty safe bit.

Starting point is 00:03:26 But Job's friends start giving him bad counsel. We heard from the first one today, Elifaz. In 412-16, Elifaz claims to have a word from God about what Job has done wrong. He insinuates that Job has brought all this trouble on himself, but we know from the story that Elifaz is wrong here. Tomorrow, we'll see how Job responds to his opinionated friend. Where did you see a picture of God's attributes

Starting point is 00:03:50 in what we read today? What's your God shot? Here's mine. It was really comforting to me to see how God is sovereign over evil. God limited the actions of the enemy. And every action the enemy took against Job ultimately served God's greater purposes as we see them unfold in the rest of Job's story. If you've never read this story,

Starting point is 00:04:10 it does get really dark, just like Noah's, but it does have a happy ending. I'm not trying to spoil anything for you. I'm just trying to encourage you as you press through these really dark spots. Keep looking for God in the dark spots of this story, because he's where the joy is. Keep looking for God in the dark spots of the story, because he's where the joy is. If you're listening to an episode and think, whoa, tearily, slow down. I have great news for you. You are in control of how fast I talk. And there's a good chance you may have accidentally hit the button on your pod catcher that speeds up my voice. Oops! So check that out first. And if I'm talking at 1x and that's still too fast for you, you can slow it down.

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The Bible Recap - Day 004 (Job 1-5) - Year 3

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