TODAY’S BIBLE READING CHALLENGE:
Job 40:1-42:17
2 Corinthians 5:11-21
Psalm 45:1-17
Proverbs 22:14
Job 40:4 — Job has an Isaiah-like experience (Isaiah 6:5). He no longer wishes to take his case to the LORD. He wants to close his mouth and take back the foolish words he has said.
Job 40:9 — James Weldon Johnson communicated this verse by applying it to today’s society: “Young man, young man, your arm’s too short to box with God!”
Job 40:15 — What is behemoth? From Journal of Creation:
Two great creatures, behemoth and leviathan, are described by God in Job. Some commentators have suggested behemoth was an elephant or hippo but the description simply doesn’t match (e.g. behemoth “moves his “tail like a cedar”). It’s appears God is describing a sauropod dinosaur and a fearsome now-extinct sea creature.
Job 41:1 — Leviathan is not referring to Thomas Hobbe’s work on government! Rather, Creation.com goes in depth and disproves the “alligator theory”:
Behemoth and leviathan may well be now extinct species that were still living in Job’s day. While what is known about several species of dinosaurs may appear to fit some aspects of God’s description of behemoth and leviathan, the most we can say with confidence is that the descriptions do not match any known living species today. At the same time, to call them ‘mythological’ creatures is to do violence to the text and context of Job; therefore, we affirm that these were actual creatures of which Job had knowledge (although we cannot state whether Job had direct or indirect knowledge of them). They symbolize the power of evil, connected with Satan, who is mentioned in the first chapters of the book. The words of God humbled Job and showed him that God is above all powers in this world.
Job 42:2 — Job responds by admitting the LORD’s omnipotence and omniscience. He then declares his insufficiency (Job 42:3) and repents (Job 42:6).
Job 42:9 — God forgives Job and continues to accept him! What a merciful God we have!
Job 42:10 — If God gave Job twice what he had before – the sheep were doubled, the camels were doubled, the oxen were doubled, and the she asses were doubled. But notice that Job’s children were replaced but not doubled (Job 42:13). Job’s children did not succumb to nihilism and vanish. No … God had taken them. Job’s children had doubled as well – half were on earth with him and half were in heaven with the LORD.
Job 42:17 — Job died, not having cursed God but having been full of days. A godly legacy!
2 Corinthians 5:11 — Terror … not in the sense of the irrational fear that we’ve charged this word with today, but in the historic sense of “calculated to impress fear” (Webster’s Dictionary 1848).
2 Corinthians 5:14 — What was the irresistible power behind Paul? The love of Christ!
2 Corinthians 5:17 — Has there been a great change since you’ve been born again?
2 Corinthians 5:18 — God hath reconciled us to Himself! This is the first use in Paul’s Epistles of the word “reconcile” (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers). Are we reconciled to God or is God reconciled to us? The hymn “Arise My Soul, Arise!” contains the line “My God is reconciled”, but some versions disagreed with the claim and so they changed it to “To God I’m reconciled”. MacArthur says it’s both:
So man has to be dramatically, transformed, but God also has to have His attitude dealt with because God cannot look upon iniquity and iniquity is going to have to be dealt with, right? Something has got to modify God’s wrath. Something’s got to deal with God’s attitude.
For an extensive explanation, see J. Preston Eby’s work “Just What Do You Mean … Reconciliation.”
However you take it – it’s not the direction of reconciliation but the “causer” of reconciliation that’s important. As Oswald Chambers summarizes it:
Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross. A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete.
How was the reconciliation accomplished? Because of the substitutionary, vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ that allowed God’s imputed righteousness to be deposited in our account (2 Corinthians 5:21).
2 Corinthians 5:20 — From Earl Martin:
Psalm 45:6 — Our God shall reign forever!
Proverbs 22:14 — A choice of companions can affect your life. And when your greatest companion is your lifelong spouse, it is important that you choose not the Strange Woman but the woman that fears the LORD (Proverbs 31:30)!
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