Understanding the Bible

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'Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God ..... Live as children of the light'  Eph.5:1,8b

 

DEVOTIONAL ARTICLES

(Page 1)

We are very pleased to welcome to this website the work of our friend Jeremy Rutland of Barnard Castle, UK. His work published under the title of 'Downstream Books'* has not previously been made widely available, so we are glad that he has given us permission to include it here.

[*4 Hallgarth, Whorlton, Barnard Castle, County Durham, DL12 8XF, UK]

1. Changed by Christ's love  [follows immediately on this page] 

2. Looking for God - Job Finds Reality 

3. Temples, Priests and Truth

 

1. CHANGED BY CHRIST'S LOVE

Introduction

The quotes from the Bible are my own translation from the Hebrew or the Greek. I have done this, not because I do not approve of other translations, but because I enjoy doing it, and it is a challenge trying to turn the Hebrew or Greek into the kind of language we use when we speak. You may want to compare them with a more word-for-word translation. A new one is the English Standard Version.

In the Old Testament, where the Hebrew has YHWH as the name for God, I have written Yahweh, rather than the LORD (as most translators do). Certainly God is Lord of the universe, but that is not the meaning of the Hebrew word. Basically Yahweh means He Exists, or, in other words, The-God-Who-is-There, which is surely a more exciting meaning. We are dealing with the Creator of the Universe; the God who existed before the world and the stars and whatever else this amazing universe is full of. He is not just some kind of higher politician, telling us what to do - he is a mighty rescuer, and cares especially for the weak and oppressed.

The Living God specializes in miracles, and that is what this article is about. He can turn human wrecks into something wholesome and useful. No one else can do that.

Mending a broken world

When there is sadness and badness all around us, how can we put some goodness into the world? Jesus says that people who follow him are like salt in a tasteless and unhappy world, and a light in the midst of the darkness, but how can we do it? He tells us to love people of all kinds - even our enemies, and pray for people who are unkind to us. We should not even criticize people, or God will judge us. Instead of destructive thoughts, there must be a store of goodness in us, which spills out into the world around us. It is what the world needs, and we must agree with Jesus, or we'll hurt people instead of healing. After telling us these things, and others like them, he said

'Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will get into the Kingdom of Heaven; but only the person who does what my Father in Heaven wants.

On That Day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, wasn't it in your name that we prophesied? In your name we made demons leave people, and in your name we did lots of miracles. Then I'll tell them plainly: "I never knew you; get away from me - harmful people." 

But how can we do what he says? We need power, as well as good ideas. So, whoever hears and does what I've been saying is like the wise person, who built this house on rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded, and the gales beat against that house, but it didn't fall, for its foundations were on rock. Whoever listens, but doesn't do what I've been saying, is like a stupid man who built his house on sand. The rain poured down on it, the rivers flooded, the gales blew against it, and it fell. And what a fall!'  Matt.7:21-27

Jesus can do it

Jesus promised never to put on us a load which we cannot carry. If we come to him, he said, he'll give us rest, and not hard work -

'Come to me, everybody who's tired, 

and anyone who's carrying a heavy load,

and I'll give you a rest.

Take my harness on you and learn from me;

For I am gentle, 

my heart is humble,                                                                  

and you'll find rest for yourselves;                                             

for the harness I put on you is comfortable,                           

and the load I make you carry is light.'

                                                                                                    Matthew 11:28-30

He does this by coming inside us, to do the work with us. 'God is Love', said John and that means that Jesus is love, too, for Jesus is also God. If Jesus lives inside us, then we really know God's love, instead of just knowing about it. It becomes part of us.

But how can Jesus do that? When he was on the earth, he could only be in one place at one time. He could not be everywhere. That was because he became less than God, so as to be among us as a human being, and suffer with us - and for us. By dying on a cross, as if he were a criminal, he took on himself all the crimes and badness of us all. He could do it, because he is really God. Now he can be everywhere again. He is with the Father, and also with us. His life can never again be taken from him, and he shares it with everyone who asks him.

He said -

If anyone stays in me, and I stay in that person, then that person will produce plenty of fruit.

                                                                                                            John 15:5

The fruit, are things like kindness, fairness, and thankfulness (instead of complaining). A tree does not have to work hard to produce fruit. It just has to be the right kind of tree, and the fruit will come naturally - if there is enough water for the roots.

And what is the water? Maybe you've guessed it - It's Jesus himself.

He said -

'Anyone who's thirsty - Come to me, and drink.

Rivers of living water will flow out of anyone who trusts me.'

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                             John 7:37-38

What a wonderful promise! Not only can we drink Christ himself, and his love, we also help to pass those on to other people!

From what Jesus said, you can see that drinking is the same as trusting.

Faith

Faith, is the same as trust.

The only person we can really and always trust is God (and Jesus Christ, who is also God). Only God lives for ever, and he can do anything. When I was five, my father left us. I could not trust people any more. They let you down. But I found I could trust God. He is the Father who will never let you down - if you trust him.

But God is more than a Father - he is a rescuer.

We are a mess. We cannot love people as we ought to. We may hate ourselves, too. Only God can get us out of this. We deserve to die. But Jesus, who was with God, and was God, came into this messy world and got killed instead. When he died, he was carrying all our badness, on himself. He took it all - to the grave. When he got up again, he was again almighty - and ready to save us. He can come and live in us, and we can live in him, as he promised. That is everlasting life. And he is love itself. We can begin to love our enemies. It is all a gift.

From hate to love

Saul was full of hate. Specially, he hated Christians, and had them put in prison whenever he could. He thought God wanted him to do it. One day he was watching some officials who were hurling stones at a Christian called Stephen. He thought this was great. The people who were doing the job took off their surplus clothes, so that they could fling the stones better, and Paul looked after the clothes. Just before he died, Stephen knelt on the ground and prayed aloud to God. 'Lord,' he said 'don't hold this crime against them'. He loved his enemies, because Jesus lived in him. This worried Saul a lot. He knew he could never have done that. Stephen seemed to have something that he didn't have. 

It got more and more difficult for Saul to hold on to his ideas. Perhaps Stephen was right when he said that Jesus was God's Christ ( or 'King'). Not long afterwards, Saul was blinded, for a while, by a brilliant light, and Jesus spoke to him. From that time on, he became a follower and servant of Jesus. Later, he and some friends went around a lot of countries, urging people to put their faith in Jesus. He changed his name to Paulus, a Latin word, which means 'small'. In English Bibles this gets shortened to 'Paul'.

Then it was Paul's turn to get stoned and put in prison, as well as meeting lots of other troubles. Because Christ was now in him, he also began to love his enemies.

Once, when he was in what's now Greece (but then was part of Macedonia), he and one of his friends, called Silas, got flogged and put in prison. They had done nothing wrong - just chased an evil spirit out of a slave-girl. In the middle of the night, they were praying and singing to God. The other prisoners were listening (they were probably all in one big cell, as prisoners still are in some parts of the world). They were all chained. But God can handle that kind of thing - there was a big earthquake, the doors were opened, and all the chains came loose. The prison officer woke up and saw what had happened. He was terrified, because he would be in serious trouble if he lost his prisoners. He was just going to commit suicide, when Paul shouted out, 'Don't do yourself any harm, we are all here'.

The prison officer rushed in, and knelt down, trembling, in front of Paul and his friend. Then he took them out of the cell, and asked them, what do I have to do, to be saved? He could see something different in these men. They seemed to love him. He wanted to know the secret. 'Put your trust in the Lord Jesus', they said, 'and you and all your family will be saved'. Then the three of them went to the rest of his family. First the prison officer took care of their wounds and gave them something to eat. Then Paul and Silas taught them more. The family believed what the two men told them, so they were baptized, to show that they were now Christians.

So you can see: - First Paul wanted what Stephen had, and got it, and then the prison officer and his family wanted what Paul and Silas had, and got it. It's like an infectious disease. It's catching. It's part of what Jesus meant when he said, 'Rivers of living water will flow out of anyone who trusts me'.

Not perfect yet

After Jesus told us to love our enemies, he said,

'Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect'

                                                                                                    Matthew 5:48

Wrong attitudes, like anger and greed, are a sickness. You can see it, because of the harm they do. As Jesus said, God is the Father of human beings. When he made the first two people, they were perfect, like him. But the Enemy enticed them away from him, and all of us are affected by that choice. When we are separated from God we are harmful, like the Enemy. When we turn back to God, and get his Spirit, the healing begins.

Jesus said, 'be perfect', and that is what we must always aim for. Paul wrote, in one of his letters from prison in Rome, that he was not perfect yet. He felt like a runner, in a race, trying hard to reach the finishing line, but knowing that he hadn't got there yet.  For all of us it is the same. We need God's power, all the time, to change us more. So we need to pray.

What Paul asked for

Paul had been an angry and cruel man. He knew he had to pray, a lot, that he would get to know Christ's love better, and that all Christ's fullness would be in him. Then he would be able to love other people better. We know he prayed like that, because it's what he prayed for other Christians.

Here is part of a letter from prison, to the Christians in Ephesus, which was one of the biggest cities in the Roman empire -

I kneel down before the Father, from whom the whole idea of 'fatherhood' comes, whether in the heavenly world or the earthly one; and I ask him that, through his generosity, and out of the wealth of his glory, the powerful work of his Spirit will give you inner strength, so that Christ himself will make his home in your hearts by your faith. I pray that your roots will go down into love, and your life be built up on it, so that you'll have power, together with all God's holy people, to realize how wide, how long, how high and how deep Christ's love is. I'm praying that you'll get to know that love, which never can be known completely, so that you'll be filled with all God's fulness.

Praise to him who has the power to do very much more than we could ask, or even imagine, through the power that is at work in us! Praise be to him in the church and through Jesus, the Christ, from generation to generation and from age to age! Amen!

                                                                                                        Ephesians 3:14-21

Is that not a wonderful prayer? It is good to read it several times, for there is so much in so few lines. We can pray the same things for ourselves, as well as for other people.

Paul prayed that Christ, with his love, would come inside those people by their faith. Faith means trust. It means expecting God to do something because we know he can do it, and wants to do it

Don't give up

Once, when Jesus was walking through a town with a whole crowd around him, a blind beggar, on the side of the road, shouted to Jesus to take pity on him. People told him to shut up, but he just kept on. Jesus stood still, and told some people to go and fetch him. Probably they thought he wanted money. When they got him through the crowds, Jesus asked him what he wanted. 'My sight', he said. This is what Jesus liked to hear - the big thing, not the small thing. 'You can go away', he said, 'your faith has made you well'. He didn't go away, he kept along with Jesus.

And Paul kept on praying, like that. He knew those people already had the Holy Spirit. Christ was already living in their hearts. Otherwise, they would not be real Christians. But he prayed that they would have more.

And Jesus tells everybody to do the same -

If any one of you is a father, and he goes to his friend in the middle of the night, and calls out, 'Friend, could you give me three loaves of bread? A friend of mine, on a journey, has come to my place, and I have nothing to give him to eat.' Then the friend will shout from inside the house: 'Stop bothering me! The door's already locked. I'm in bed, and my children too. I can't get up and give you anything!'

Now I'm telling you, even if he won't get up and give him something because he's his friend, he'll get out of bed and give him anything he wants if the man is rude enough to keep on asking.

'So I'm saying to you:

Ask, and it will be given to you!

Search, and you'll find!                                                                           

Knock, and the door will be opened for you!'

Because -

'Anyone who asks will get!                                                                          

And anyone who searches will find!                                                                

And the door will be opened for anyone who knocks.'

 'If you're a father, and your son asks you for a fish, would you hand him a snake instead? Or if he asks you for an egg, would you hand him a scorpion? If you, who are not good, know how to give good things to your children, then how much more will the Father from Heaven give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks him!'

                                                                                                        Luke 11:5-13

Now that's a promise. A promise by the Living God, who can't lie!

Testing ourselves

How do we know whether he has given us what we asked for. Well, how did the blind beggar know that Jesus had given him what he asked for? At first he got nothing, and he knew he needed to go on asking. Then he got his sight. When we ask for the Holy Spirit, (which is the same as Jesus living in us), we can tell when we have got what we asked for, because we will begin to love other people, even people who are unkind to us, the way Jesus did. Then we know that we belong to Jesus, and have God as our Father. We have a new kind of life. Real life, because it is God's life. We have been born a second time. We have everlasting life.

Everyone who loves, has been born from God, and knows God. Anyone who does not love, does not know God, because God is love.

God's kind of love has been shown to us, because he has sent his only Son into the world so that we can have life through him.

That's what love is - not that we have come to love God, but that he loved us, and sent his only son as a sacrifice to make up for our faults.

My dear friends, if God loved us like that, we owe a debt, to love one another. If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love has been made complete in us.

                                                                                                                1 John 4:7-12

Now, I think you can see why we must never despise anyone. God loved people who resented him and were nasty. He paid a terrible price to open a way for us to get back to him. He did not love people because we were attractive, but because he is love. He loves us because we are human, and were created to be like himself (we are not children of apes - that is a myth). The only proof that we have him inside us, is that we have his attitudes. If we do not have his kind of love, then we do not belong to him.

I have been proud and self-righteous. I have despised other people. I thought I was some kind of expert. I am now horrified. I'm nothing if I do not have God's kind of love.

The great thing is - we can keep on asking, even if we already have the Holy Spirit. There is always more room in our hearts for Christ to occupy.

God's promises

We have been looking at one of God's promises - that he'll give us his Holy Spirit if we keep on asking. Well there are lots of promises like that, in the Bible, and we can grab hold of them. God never lies. Here is a promise he made hundreds of years before Jesus arrived on the earth:

I'll sprinkle clean water on you,

and you'll be clean from everything that made you dirty,

and I'll clean you from all your idols.

I'll also give you a new heart,

and put a new spirit inside you.

I'll remove the heart of stone from your bodies

and give you a really human heart.

I'll put my Spirit inside you,

and turn you into someone who keeps my laws,

holding onto my orders, and obeying them.

                                                                                                Ezekiel 36:25-27

You might ask what right we have to grab hold of this promise. It was written for Israel, which was supposed to be God's nation. What right have we to use it? Well, Jesus is the key. He is the real king of the true Israel. If we are taking shelter in him, then we are also in God's Israel. He said:

'Whatever you ask for, using my name -                                                        

I'll give it to you,                                                                                               

so that the Father will get glory through the Son.                                            

If you ask anything, using my name, I'll do it.'

                                                                    John 14:13,14

So, read the Bible, look for the promises, and keep on praying. You'll find quite a lot of promises in John's Gospel.

God's Power

To have faith, we need to know just how strong God is. Here is a story about some people who did not have enough faith. The problem seemed too difficult for them -

Jesus, and three of his twelve special followers, came down from a mountain to join the others. They found a crowd of people who were arguing. At the centre of this was a boy and his father. The boy had epileptic fits. He used to fall down, clench his teeth, foam at the mouth, and become stiff. An evil spirit had got into the boy, and was causing all the trouble. They were arguing, because Jesus' other special followers were not able to chase the spirit away. They had healed lots of other people, because Jesus had given them the power. What had gone wrong here? Jesus said it was because they did not have enough faith.

Then he spoke to the boy's father -

'How long has he had this thing?'

'Ever since he was small' he said. 'It often throws him into the fire, and into water, trying to kill him. But, if you can do anything - have pity on us, and help us!

'What do you mean, 'If you can do anything?' Everything is possible to someone who has faith.

Quickly the child's father shouted out 'I do believe - help my unbelief'.

When Jesus saw that the whole crowd was running towards them, he spoke angrily to the evil spirit: 'You dumb and deaf spirit, I order you - get out of him, and never come back again!' The boy cried out, had a terrible fit, and the spirit left him. He looked as if he was dead, and lots of people were saying that he was. But Jesus took hold of his hand and lifted him up, and he got up onto his feet.

                                                                                                    Mark 9:21-27

Why did Jesus' men not have enough faith? Before this, he had sent them off to chase out evil spirits and heal people, and they were successful. But now they fail. They didn't think God could do it. Or maybe they didn't think he would want to.

Now, God is strong enough to deal with any problem, and he certainly wants to heal us from our wrong attitudes.

Let's think of his power. First of all, he made the universe - out of nothing. He made us, and therefore we matter to him. If he made us, he can mend us, even if we are seriously crooked.

Then there's another thing - he got Jesus up from among the dead, to the highest place in the universe. Let's think about that. Jesus got the death penalty because they said he wanted to be king. He was hammered onto a cross, with nails, and hung up till he died. His body was put in a cave, and a big stone was rolled in front if it. Some soldiers were placed on guard, to make sure nobody went in or out. It all looked hopeless. But three days later he was up and about again, with a body that could never be destroyed, showing himself to a whole lot of people, and talking with them. Now he is in the highest possible place, with the Father, and can never die again. And the same power, which did all that, is for us.

Another way to be sure about God's power, and to encourage our faith, is to read the Bible. He loves to rescue people from all kinds of trouble, and there are lots of stories to show that he can do it. Jesus went around healing people, telling a storm to go away, turning water into wine, and so on. Those were real miracles, but they also had a meaning, and the meaning is this - God really can turn us from being nasty into being kind, he really can give us everlasting life, he can put Christ's love into us, so that we love our enemies - because Jesus is God. He can give us patience when people annoy us or disappoint us, and that may be our wife, or husband. We cannot do these things by ourselves. They are miracles. But God specializes in miracles.

Be like little children

Jesus said we need to be like little children. Little children know they need their parents. They can't live properly without them, and they need them all the time. We need God all the time, to do what we cannot do ourselves. We are weak and he is strong.

Paul wrote this, in one of his letters -

The life which I am living, in my body, I live by faith in God's Son, who loved me and gave up his life for me.

                                                                                                Galatians 2:20

That is why Jesus could say that he gives us rest, and does not put a heavy load on us. We trust him, and he does the work. You cannot get everlasting life by being good. It's the other way round. You get God's Spirit, which is the guarantee of everlasting life, and he makes us good. But the goodness is not really ours. It is his. If we forget him, we fall down. So, in a way life is a battle. The Enemy tries to shift us away from God, so that we try to run our lives by ourselves, and fail.

Paul wrote about this battle, in a letter to a friend, when he knew he was soon going to be put to death -

I am already being poured out as a sacrifice, and it is now time for me to leave this life. I have fought the good fight. I've reached the end of the race. I have kept the faith.

                                                                                                2 Timothy 4:6-7

He was looking forward to being with Jesus. His life had been very hard, but 'Christ's love drives us on', he said.

Not just duty.

Don't get weary

In one of his letters Paul wrote -

Don't get it wrong. You can't fool God. If you put a seed in the ground, you'll get the plant that comes from that seed. If you hand your life over to human nature, what you get out will be destruction. If you hand it over to the Spirit, then what you get out will be everlasting life, from the Spirit.

So don't give up doing good. When the right time comes, you'll get a harvest - if you don't give up. So, while we can, let's work hard at doing good to everybody, and especially to the family of believers.

                                                                                                    Galatians 6:7-10

There are only two kinds of human being. One kind stays the way he or she was born; the other kind turns to God and asks for his Spirit. The first kind cannot help being selfish, even if he or she is religious. The other kind becomes a servant, to help people, by God's power and love.

Sometimes we may get weary. What are we getting out of all this? People may even resent the good we do. That happened to Paul, a lot.

But he knew it was worth it. He says we get everlasting life, in the end, and that makes up for everything.

In a way, people who rely on Christ already have everlasting life, because they have his Spirit. But, Paul said, the Holy Spirit is also a guarantee of something wonderful which is still waiting for us - a new body and whole new world (or universe) where there is no death, no handicap, sickness or decay, nor harm of any kind. Even nature is longing for this to happen -

Let the sea thunder,

and everything that lives in it!

Also the earth,

and everything living in it!

Let the rivers clap their hands,

and the mountains shout together for gladness

For Yahweh, because he's coming!

He's coming to put the earth right again. !

He'll put the earth right,

and bring justice to the nations.

                                                                                                    Psalm 98:7-9

and here's another one like it

Let the open country get excited,

and everything that's in it.

Then the trees of the forest will shout for joy,

when Yahweh arrives.

Because he's coming!

He's coming to put the earth right!

                                                                                Psalm 96:12-13

Now we'll let Paul have the last word. He is writing to Christians living in Rome, which was the capital of the western world -

As for me, the sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory which will be shown to us later. The whole created universe can hardly wait for the time when God's children will be shown up for what they are.

                                                                                    Romans 8:18-19.

Paul didn't know that he would be in Rome himself, before long - as a prisoner.

But it's all worth it, in the end.

Back to the top

 

2. Looking for God  - Job Finds Reality

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

The quotes from the Bible have been translated by myself from the Hebrew and Greek. I do this partly because I enjoy it, partly so as not to have to bother about copyright, and also because I try to use the kind of language that we normally speak. The quotes are in a different type from the rest of the text. Those from the book of Job itself are in the same type, but bold - like this.

The Hebrews very often called God ‘Yahweh’. Where this name comes in the Old Testament, English-language translators have mostly put ‘The Lord’ (with small capitals). This seems to me a pity. The word does not mean ‘Lord’. It is a name, which means, more or less, ‘He Is’, In other words, Yahweh is ‘The God who Exists’. There is no English word which contains that meaning, so I stick to the Hebrew name. The more you get to know him, the more you can fill out the meaning of that word in your own mind. It turns out to be a wonderful and exciting name. Yahweh is very much more than a ‘Lord’, who rules you and tells you what to do. He is a mighty rescuer, and helper of the helpless.

No one knows how people said ‘Job’ when he was around, which was probably before any of the other books in the Bible were written, but English-speaking people usually say his name as if it had an ‘e’ at the end, like ‘robe’, not like ‘rob’.

Quite often I write ‘he’ or ‘him’, when I really mean ‘he or she’, or ‘him or her’, etc. If you feel offended by this, I am sorry. I try to avoid the problem as much as I can, but it becomes clumsy always to say ‘human being’, or ‘he or she’.

There is a lot of misery in the book of Job, but this little booklet is about some surprising insights which came into Job’s mind, and I found it cheering. I hope you do too.

JOB LOOKS FOR THE ANSWERS

A long time after Job lived, Paul said to some people in Greece:

Men of Athens, I can see that, in every way, you have great respect for the gods. I was walking around, looking carefully at the objects that you worship, when I saw an altar with an inscription on it saying ‘To The God We Don’t Know’.

I’m going to tell you about that Person whom you reverence without knowing him.

The God who made the universe, and everything in it, is the Lord of heaven and of earth. He doesn’t live in any man-made temples, and neither does he need anybody’s hands to look after him. Instead, it is he who gives life and breath to every creature. It was he who put in place every race of human beings on the entire planet, all descended from one person; and it was he who arranged the periods of history, and the regions where people were to exist, giving them the opportunity of looking for God, in the hope that they would search for him and find him.

In fact he is not far from any of you, for it is in him that we live, move and exist. As one of your own prophets said:

'for we also are descended from him.’

Since we are descended from him, we shouldn’t have the idea that God is like some object that has been thought up and carved by a craftsman.

God looked on, patiently, during those past ages of ‘not knowing’, but now he is telling everybody, everywhere, to think differently, because he has arranged a day when he will judge the whole world. He will do this by a man he has chosen, and he has given to everybody a guarantee of this, by raising that person up from among the dead.

                                                                                                                                                    Acts 17:22-31

Job was one of those people who ‘searched for God and found him’, without any part of the Bible to help him.

Although Job did not at first know God, he knew that he was there, and he knew that he liked fairness, kindness and truth. These are things which we naturally know, until the thoughts get pushed out of our mind. Somebody must have made the universe. It is only sensible to assume that truth is important to him, and that he wants us to be fair and kind to people, because that is the way we would like people to treat us.

Job took these things seriously, and was kind, fair, and truthful. God was very pleased with him, but Job still did not know God personally. He just knew about him.

Then everything went wrong. He lost his property, his sons and daughters, and his health. He thought he was going to die. Where was God?

His wife told him to ‘curse God and die’.

But that made no sense to Job. The only place where we can get real comfort and meaning to life has to be God. What good would it do to curse him? He is stronger than we are. If we try to get rid of God you have to suppose that the universe made itself, that there is nobody out there who cares about us, and nobody to reward us for doing right or to punish people who are unfair. Job knew that there must be fairness out there somewhere, and he was not going to stop until he found out what the answer was.

His friends tried to put him right. They also knew there was a God, but their idea of him was not clear or definite. They did not give Job the answers that he needed. They agreed that God punished bad people, but not that he really cared about you and me. You can never be perfect, they said, and neither would God ever consider a human being to be completely free of guilt. Just try to be good, they thought, and then things should go all right. If you were suffering a lot, then you must have made God very angry. You certainly cannot reach God, to get an answer from him, and you definitely should not argue with him, they insisted.

One of them, Bildad, said about God:

With him, can any human being be in the right?

Can any one who’s been born look clean?

Think! Even the moon does not look clear,

and the stars don’t look bright - to him!

Then, how much less does a man - that worm!

Or a human being - that maggot!

                                                                                                            Job Chapter 25

But Job felt that he must be more important to God than a maggot, and that there must be some way of becoming ‘clean’ enough to get near him.

He had just been saying:

Now I have a bitter complaint;

I groan, because of God’s heavy hand on me.

If only I could find him!

I’d go to where he lives.

I’d put my case plainly to him.

My mouth would be full of arguments.

I’m sure I’d understand his reply,

and make sense of what he said to me.

Would he attack me with all his power?

No! He’d listen.

There, an honest person could reason with him,

and my Judge would give me security for ever.

                                                                                                                    Job 23:2-7

He did not let himself be bullied by Bildad, or any of the others. He must get an answer from God himself. And he was right. God likes this kind of courage.

Later, Jesus said:

              Ask, and it will be given to you.

              Search, and you will find.

              Knock, and the door will be opened for you.

    Everyone who asks will receive,

    whoever searches will find,

    and the door will be opened

    for everyone who knocks.

Job, of course, never heard Jesus say this, but he somehow knew it must be that way. It is true that we don’t look ‘clean’ beside God, but he is not a monster. There must be some way of getting near him. The worst thing to do is keep one’s distance from him. If he is dangerous, then the only sensible thing is to make contact with him, and see if some kind of peace-arrangement can be organized.

Everybody and everything seemed to be shouting out that God was furious with Job, and his ‘friends’ were accusing him of things he had not done, so as to clear God of unfairness. The only place he could go to for a welcome and safety was God himself. If this was not possible, then the world would be completely unfair, and life would have no meaning. Job took his life in his hands and carried on with his search.

But how would it work? How can you get round Bildad’s argument? How can a person become clean enough to live with God?

While Job was desperately trying to work things out, ideas came into his mind which must surely must have been given to him by God.. They all came true in Jesus, who always existed but did not appear on the earth until hundreds of years after Job died.

Here are seven of the insights which God gave to Job.

(1) A Peace-maker was needed

Job knew that he needed, more than anything else, to have God on his side. But how could this be? Could God be the friend of an imperfect person?

Job realized that he needed someone between him and God, to make peace between the two of them:

I’m frightened of all my pains.

I know that you won’t acquit me

I shall be found guilty.

Why am I working for nothing?

Even if I washed myself with melting snow,

or cleaned my hands with potash,

you’d dip me in a muddy pit,

and my own clothes would turn up their nose at me.

There isn’t any one between us to decide our case;

someone who would put his hand on each one of us.

                                                                                                                Job 9:33

Job was wrong, but his insight was brilliant There is indeed a man-in-the-middle to arrange a peace treaty between us and God, and it is Jesus:

'There is one God, and there is one middle-man between God and human beings: the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself up as a ransom for everybody.

                                                                                                                                        1 Timothy 2:5-6:

We can have a permanent peace-treaty with God because of what Jesus has suffered. Although he did this long after Job died, his sacrifice was valid backwards in time, and it is for all people of all time who rely on the Living God to put them right. Now Jesus is alive for ever to guarantee the peace.

(2) God can say we are ‘Not Guilty’

One of Job’s friends got angry with him for arguing with God. Job knew this was unfair, and it made him feel all the more sure that God must be on his side.

He boldly said:

I’ve got my legal case ready,

and I know I’ll be cleared of guilt.

                                                                                                    Job 13:18

Completely cleared from guilt? In the court of the Living God? Yes indeed!

Paul wrote:

Since we have been fully acquitted because of our faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

                                                                                                 Romans 5:1

and

God proved that he loved us, because Christ died for us while we were still disobedient. Now that we have been fully acquitted, because of Christ’s blood, we can be all the more certain that he’ll save us from God’s anger.

                                                                                                  Romans 5:8-9

(3) Through Death to Life

Job wished that he would die, stay in the world of the dead until God’s anger had cooled off, and then come alive again with God as a friend:

Here he starts off thinking about death:

There is hope for a tree.

If it is cut down it can grow again;

a new shoot will surely sprout up.

If its root grows old in the earth,

and its trunk dies off in the ground,

as soon as it sniffs moisture it will sprout,

and produce a crop like any other plant.

But when a man dies he lies down.

A human being expires, and where is he?

Water evaporates from a lake,

a river-bed runs dry;

So does a person lie down,

and doesn’t get up.

Until the heavens vanish,

people don’t wake up again.

They are not roused from their sleep.

If only you would hide me in Sheol,

and keep me there ,

till your anger cools down.

Set a date for me,

and then remember me.

(Can a man die and then live again?)

All the time of my trouble I’d be waiting,

until my relief came.

You’d call for me, and I’d answer you.

You, who made me, would be missing me.

You’d be counting my footsteps.

You wouldn’t hold my sin against me.

All that I’ve done wrong would be locked away,

and you’d put a lid on my crime.

                                                                                                                                   Job 14:7-17

Once again, Job got it right.

The things we do wrong make God angry, because they hurt other people, or they are an offence against truth. Death is the penalty for them all. We would have to be perfect to earn everlasting life. But when we take refuge in Jesus, his death becomes our death, and his life becomes our life.

Paul wrote:

You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ, in God.

                                                                                                                                                    Colossians 3:3

Baptism is a picture of this:

You have been buried with him in baptism, and in the same way you have been raised up to life again with him, because of your confidence in God’s power - the same power which lifted Jesus up from among the dead. You used to be dead, in your failings and your ‘uncircumcised’ human nature; but now you have been brought back to life together with Christ. He has generously cancelled all our mistakes, and has wiped out the system of laws, written by human  hands, which used to accuse us. These he nailed to the cross.

                                                                                                            Colossians 2:12-15

Death is a punishment for disobeying God, which we have all done. But if we are in Christ we have gone through that, and come up again the other side. That is real safety.

(4) A Defender

This is rather like Number 1. There the picture was of two enemies who needed someone to bring them together again. Here it is of a court case, where God is accusing, and Job feels there surely must be someone in the court to defend him:

Right now, there is someone in Heaven who gives evidence for me;

someone Up There who is my witness.

                                                                                                        Job 16:19 .

Once again, Job is right, and it’s Jesus who is our man. John wrote this:

My children,

I am writing these things to you so that you won’t do wrong.

But if anyone does sin,

we have someone who takes our side with the Father.

That is, Jesus Christ,

who is fair, and who gave up his life as a sacrifice,

so that we can be cleared from everything we’ve done wrong.

It was not just for us that he did this,

but for the whole world.

                                                                            1 John 2:1-2

And Paul wrote:

Who is there to accuse us? Christ Jesus? But he died. More than that: he got up from among the dead, and now he is at God’s right hand, where he speaks in our defence.

                                                                                                           Romans 8:34:

(5) Security

Job wanted a secure relationship with God, which nothing could break. But, to have that kind of deal there must surely be a price to pay. It’s like becoming a citizen of another country. You have to pay, and then you have the security which that country gives. But who is going to pay out a sum that will give you that kind of security with God? Job realized that nobody could buy it for him - except God himself.

So he said:

Please give me a guarantee of safety.

Who’s going to lay down a sum that will give me security?

                                                                                                                                Job 17:3

The answer, of course, is Jesus, who is God as well as a human being. They sentenced him to death as a criminal, flogged him, spat on him, made fun of him, despised him, and nailed him up on a cross to die. That suffering was an infinite sum, paid by the infinite Son of God. The Father sent him into the world to do just this, and his obedience gives security to all who trust him:

God handed Christ Jesus over to be a sacrifice, so that his blood would make up for what we have done wrong. This gift becomes ours when we trust him.

                                                                                                                            Romans 3:25

and

The Son of Man did not come so that people would serve him. He came to be a servant, and to give up his life as a ransom for many people.

                                                                                                                              Matthew 20:28

(6) A Rescuer (or ‘Redeemer’)

Job was in a mess. When you are in a mess you need someone to get you out of it. Job knew he would one day die, and it looked as if that would be very soon. There is no one who can rescue a dead person, except God, and Job felt sure that he would do it. Life would make no sense otherwise.

He said:

I know that my rescuer is alive.

Later, he’ll stand on the earth.

After my skin has been destroyed

there he will be;

and from my body

I will see God.

                                                                                Job 19:25-26

Again, it is Jesus who comes to our rescue. He is God, but became a human being so as to die instead of us. He got up again with a life that cannot be destroyed, after earning the right to share this with us, so people who belong to him have everlasting life. God’s laws can no longer condemn us to everlasting destruction:

When the right time came, God sent his Son to be born from a woman, and born under the rule of the Law, to rescue those who were under the law, so that they could become sons instead of slaves.

Galatians 4:4-5

Even if we have everlasting life, this body of ours still has to die - but only for a while. Jesus’ rescue operation has looked after that as well:

Even though we already have the Spirit, who is the first instalment of what God promised, we still groan inside ourselves, while we wait to become fully sons, as we will be when our bodies are redeemed too. This is what we were given to look forward to, when we were saved.

                                                                                                Romans 8:23-24

(7) Wisdom.

Job was looking for wisdom, which means understanding the hidden things, or getting below the surface. Job’s friends and teachers thought they were wise, but Job could see very well that their world-view had holes in it.

He knew that wisdom must be somewhere. But where?

Wisdom? Where can it be found?

Where can you go, to find insight?

No human being knows the way to it.

It can’t be found in the land of living people.

The ocean says, ‘It is not in me’.

and the sea says, ‘It is not with me’.

Pure gold can’t buy it;

and it’s no good weighing out silver for it.

                                                                                                            Job 28 12-15

Job goes on like this for a whole chapter.

By now it may not now surprise you that Jesus himself is also our Wisdom.

He called himself the Truth:

I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.

No one gets to the Father, except through me.

                                                                                                                John 14:6

In one of his letters Paul wrote:

God has placed you in Christ Jesus, and Jesus personally has become your ‘wisdom’ from God. This means that Jesus himself has become our righteousness, and the power to make us holy, and our liberation. Therefore, as it has been written [by Jeremiah], ‘If someone’s going to be proud, let him be proud of the Lord.’

                                                                                1 Corinthians 1:30-31 (and Jeremiah 9:24)

and in another letter:

I’d like you to realize what a great battle I’m having to fight for your good, and also for those in Laodicea, and for others who have never seen me personally. I’m labouring, so that your hearts will be encouraged and built up in love, and that you’ll have the full wealth of certainty in your understanding, so that you get insight into God's secret. That secret is Christ himself. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are locked up in him.

                                                               Colossians 2:1-3

At rock bottom, the meaning of the universe is not a bunch of ideas, but the Living God himself; and it is impossible to make sense of life, or of nature, without him (by ‘Him’ I mean the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit). For a start, he made it. And all our big problems can only be put right by him. This means that true wisdom is about power, and not just something in the mind.

It is a tragic thing that human beings try to make God smaller than he really is - or even to get rid of him altogether. When we do this, our mind becomes stupid and true wisdom vanishes. We lose any possibility of understanding why things are as they are, and it becomes impossible to find any sure and effective answers to the to the urgent problems inside and outside of us.

JOB FINDS GOD

In the end God spoke to Job. He did not tell him the answers, for Job had found them out already. Besides, they had not yet come true. Instead, God gently reminded Job of some of the wonderful things he had made. This made Job feel very small. But he got the point. The real God is not chiefly a destroyer, but a Creator, and if he took the time and trouble to point out to Job these marvels of nature, then he was surely not angry with him. God was his friend, no matter what his advisers had been saying. And then there was another point - if God had taken so much care in making the earth, sea and stars, and mountain goats and ostriches and all the other animals that he spoke about, and clearly enjoyed them, then most surely he cares about human beings too, especially those who look for him seriously, as Job had done.

WHAT KIND OF GOD?

When Yahweh had finished saying these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am furious with you and your two friends, because you have not said the right things about me, the way Job has.’

                                                                            Job 42:7

Job said some fairly outrageous things to and about God, but he was on the right track. He knew that he was not perfect, and that God could very easily prove him guilty, Yet he knew somehow that God was also his only possible security. He was being unfairly treated, and the Living God was the only place he could run to for justice and security. He didn’t know how the bits would fit together, but he knew they did somehow.

The Fair Judge

His ‘friends’ had the wrong idea of God. They knew he was a judge, but their idea of a perfect judge was also too negative. In the Bible, judges are ordered especially to look after people who have a hard life: the poor, the widow, the child who has lost his father, and the foreigner living in the land. They are warned not to take bribes, or do what powerful men want them to do; because God himself will punish them if they are unfair. They are to be fair, because that’s how God is, and being fair means defending people who are being treated unfairly. Job was looking for that kind of justice from God.

King David was another person who desperately asked God for justice. Several times he asked God to judge him, which meant putting things right for him. Two psalms of his are about this longing for fair treatment:

Yahweh sits on his throne for ever,

firmly committed to justice.

He’ll judge the world fairly

all the different races will get a fair deal

The oppressed will find security in Yahweh himself.

When everything fails, he will be a place of safety.

People who know who you are

put their trust in you,

for you do not abandon anyone who looks for you.

Sing to Yahweh, who lives in Zion!

In the nations, tell them of the things he’s done!

He sees when people are killed unfairly,

and will do something about it.

He doesn’t ignore the cries of the poor and mistreated.

Be kind to me, Yahweh!

Those people who hate me -

you see what they are doing to me.

It’s you who lift me up

out of the gates of death.

Then I’ll declare all the glorious things you’ve done.

In the gates of the Daughter of Zion

I’ll tell people how you rescue us!

The nations have sunk down

into the pit which they themselves dug.

They’ve got caught in the net

which they hid to catch other people in.

Yahweh has made himself known.

He has judged.

The guilty person is brought down

by his own tricks.

Guilty people go down to Sheol -

all the nations who take no notice of God.

For the poor will not be forgotten forever;

and troubled people will not forever be

deprived of what they hope for.

Get up, Yahweh!

Don’t let man win!

Make sure that the nations get judged!

Strike them with terror, Yahweh!

Make the nations realize they are only human beings.

                                                                    Psalm 9:7-20

Yahweh, why are you so far away from us?

When everything else fails,

why do you hide yourself too?

Arrogant and cruel men persecute

the person who is already down.

Let them get caught by their own tricks!

The guilty man is proud of his greedy ambitions.

The man who gets rich unfairly,

congratulates himself, and despises Yahweh.

The unfair man, in his arrogance

says ‘There’ll be no penalty’.

His one thought is: ‘There is no God;’

and his future seems secure for ever.

Your fair judgments

are too high for him to understand,

and he turns up his nose

at anyone who gets in his way.

‘Nothing can shake me’, he says to himself.

‘For ever and ever, nothing will go wrong.’

In his mouth there is a curse,

It is full of deceit and cruelty.

Under his tongue are trouble and misery.

He lurks in the hidden corners of villages;

from each hiding place he kills an innocent person.

His eyes are on the lookout for his prey.

He waits in a hidden place, like a lion in a thicket,

to catch some unfortunate person,

and in the end he gets him.

He crushes someone who is already down,

and sinks his claws into a helpless person.

He says to himself, ‘God isn’t interested.’

He’s looking the other way,

He never sees us at all.’

Jahweh, God, get up! Do something!

Don’t ignore the people who are deprived.

How long is a guilty person going to despise God?

He says to himself,

‘He won’t pay me back for what I’ve done.’

You, God, can see the misery and the anger.

You’ll take notice, and you’ll do something about it!

The deprived, fatherless child, is relying on you;

you’re the only one who can help.

Smash the power of the guilty and cruel man!

You’ll pay him back for the harm he’s done,

till he’s no longer to be found.

Yahweh is king for ever and ever.

The nations will perish from his land.

You, Yahweh, will listen to the longing of the deprived.

You’ll put new life into them,

and listen to what they are saying;

so as to give justice to the fatherless child,

and the exploited;

and there’ll be no one left to cause terror on the earth.

                                                                                                    Psalm 10:1-18

You get the picture. This is an unfair world, and the justice of God is about saving the people who are unfairly treated.

How does this affect us?

The human race has become fatherless. It has cut itself loose from the Living God, who is our real Father. (We are not the children of apes). We therefore have problems, as all children do who are deprived of the affection of their father. Because of this lost relationship, there is anger in us, and obsessive greed for all sorts of things, to make up for the missing relationship. We have fallen into the hands of a horrible dictator, who loves to destroy, and who messes up human lives. This is just the sort of situation where the Fair Judge is needed

Jesus said ‘Whoever does wrong is a slave to wrong.’ He did not say it to depress us, but because he has arranged a way of escape. He also said ‘If the Son makes you free you, you really will be free’. God, the judge who takes the side of the oppressed, has sent his Son to rescue us out of the hands of the Devil and turn us into his children again.

There is just one condition - we have to admit that we are slaves. A judge will not do you any good unless you go to him with your case, as Job did. The people that Jesus was talking to insisted that they were free, and didn’t need any help. Jesus told them that the Devil was their father, which meant that they had inherited his character. They saw it as an insult, and wanted to kill him,

John put it like this:

If we say there is nothing wrong with us,

we are not being honest with ourselves,

and the truth does not live in us.

If we admit our failures,

he is reliable and fair;

he’ll acquit us from our sins,

and make us clean from everything that is wrong.

                                                                                                                                    1 John 1:8-9

To save, and not to criticize.

Jesus said

I didn’t come into the world to accuse it,

but to save it.

                                                        John 12:47

This is where Job’s ‘comforters’ went wrong. They criticized him all the time, and thought that God was accusing him too. Instead God likes to rescue people out of the hands of the Devil and, transfer them into his own kingdom, without anything to pay:

He rescued us out of the control of darkness, and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who paid a ransom which brings forgiveness for what we’ve done wrong.

                                                                                                                                        Colossians 1:13-14

The devil loves to criticize and condemn. In fact that is the meaning of his name, which comes from the Greek word ‘diabolos’, meaning an accuser or slanderer. He tries to make us feel hopeless, useless and worthless. Instead of that, every human being is very important to God - as important as the son or daughter of a caring father. He wants to save us, not destroy us.

The Devil tries very hard to hide that fact, and make us think that God also is mainly an accuser, so that we give up trying to get near him. He suggests that we would have to work very hard to make friends with God - too hard for it to be possible - so that we despair, or pretend that God is not there, or that he is less than he really is.

So, really, the book of Job is about two views of God - the false one, put out by the Devil, and the real one, which Job discovered when he insisted on finding him.

Job’s ‘friends’ were doing the Devil’s work.

KNOWING GOD’S LOVE