Rabbi’s Reflections – Friday, February 9, 2024
(Early) Shabbat Shalom,
The Lessons Of Job, part 14
(The last of the series)
Pursue God, It’s Worth It
Was Job changed through his ordeal? Listen to his own testimony as he answers God for himself. Job 42:2 I know You can do all things; no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. You might say, didn’t Job always know this? Who doesn’t know that God can do all things, that no purpose of His can be thwarted? My point is that there are levels of knowing, and at the highest level, we are in His presence and completely dedicated to the purpose of giving Him glory (and taking none for ourselves).
Rabbi Trail: There is one thing God cannot do. Without any regard to the old joke, “Can God create a rock so heavy, even He can’t lift it?” God cannot lie. Hebrews 6:18b …it is impossible for God to lie…. Another way to say that is “God keeps His promises.” Even the false prophet, Balaam, understood this… Numbers 23:19 God is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes his mind! Does He speak and then not do it, or promise and not fulfill it? End RT.
Job was faithful in pleasing God before being smitten. Job 1:8 Adonai said to the satan, “Did you notice my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth—a blameless and upright man, who fears God and spurns evil.” We’ve already studied the story. What follows is a crucible of testing allowed by God in order to make Job stronger. My question today is, “Did Job’s testing produce the desired result?” Better than that, are your trials producing the desired result? This is not a rhetorical question. Let’s investigate the scriptural answer for Job.
Job 42:3b “Surely I spoke without understanding, things too wonderful for me which I did not know.” Job is confessing how he previously “spoke without understanding,” but what has changed? Job 42:5 “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye has seen You.” Job’s trials have taken him to a new reality, a deeper level of “knowing” God.
Yet, the question remains, did all of these trials change Job? Hear his final confession… Job 42:6 “Therefore I despise myself, and repent on dust and ashes.” Sounds remarkably similar to Isaiah’s words upon seeing the Lord. Isaiah 6:1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw Adonai sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple…. Isaiah 6:5 Then I said: “Oy to me! For I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!”
Both Job and later, Isaiah, experienced God before Yeshua’s crucifixion. Today, things have changed for those of us who believe on Him and have taken on the faith OF Yeshua. 2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory—just as from the Lord, who is the Spirit. We are not “selling a theory.” Our testimony is the sharing of our own experience in reality. 2Corinthians 2:17 For we are not like many, peddling the word of God. Rather, in Messiah we speak in the sight of God with sincerity, as persons sent from God.
Job’s experience changed him into a new man, may our own experience do the same for us. Pursue God, He will make you stronger. Shalom shalom.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
30 Sh’vat Friday 9-Feb-24 Rosh Chodesh Adar I (Day 1)
Exodus 23:20-25 1 Kings 18 Psalm 109 John 4:31-54 1 Timothy 6