Grief & Trust

Job Series 

The book of job is broken down into 4 parts 

Prologue - Here we are introduced to the main character Job and then we’re transported to a divine council meeting where God is with his sons. The basis of this part of the book is key to understanding much of what is to come. (Chapters 1-2)
Discourse - Job and his friends get into it, they offer their opinions on why Job is in this condition, and Job reiterates his innocence and questions God. (Chapters 3-37)
The Response - After the 36th time and demanding that God answers him, God responds, sets examples and questions Jobs ability to comprehend the depth and capacity to manage creation. (Chapters 38-41)
Epilogue - Job humbled by the awesomeness of God apologises, God restores him, and gives him the choice to restore his friends. Job receives more than what he lost, trust and relationship wins over the uncertainty of doubt and crisis. 

What do we know - It’s set in the land of Uz which is away from Israel. All characters are non-Israelite, wealth is measured in livestock. The fact he had camels, and the tribal names of some of his friends suggest that regionally we’re looking at a man of great status and position within and among the Arabian tribes.

Job 7

What do we know - It’s set in the land of Uz which is away from Israel. All characters are non-Israelite, wealth is measured in livestock. The fact he had camels, and the tribal names of some of his friends suggest that regionally we’re looking at a man of great status and position within and among the Arabian tribes.

Grief & Trust

Job 7/8

7:1-5 - Job finds himself asking questions beyond his ability to comprehend, he recalls the experience of the moment and documents it almost in disbelief, going over rudiments and principles and trying to figure out where it’s gone wrong.
7:5-10 - Job is again reiterating his desire to not be, he doesn’t want to cast away his life, but he aligns the principles of his situation along that of a person who should either be dying, dead or executed.
7:11-15 - Pain must be allowed to speak, Hebrews 4:15 God didn’t have a problem with what he was feeling, he just didn’t want it to get in the way of what he was supposed to know and do, which is trust and obey..
7:15-21 - Job questions the wisdom and seeming folly of what appears to be his life. He beseeches God as to what his charge is (Psalm 34), he asks God why have you made me your target, when in fact God had made Job his testament. The enemy would have Job thinking that the very thing he covered his children is the very thing God was exposing him for, but in righteous tribulation God only exposes that which he has already covered.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello everybody and welcome to Rima Reloaded with me, Sean Williams. It is an honor, a privilege. We'll go over honor and privilege to be with you all today. I hope you enjoyed our Bible study from last week, Hope Abandoned. We got some wonderful comments and some of the interactions from some of you that have been seeing the bits that are going out on our Instagram. If you're not following that, go follow that. On our YouTube as well, we will be able to go live. So, guys, this is a very fantastic and exciting new option that has now become available to us. So on the different platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Rima Bible Study. And if you want the youth Bible study Rima reloaded, that also is tucked in the main brand of what we're doing. So last week we were talking about Hope Abandon. We're still in our Job series. It's been such an amazing series to kind of look at Job's story, to look at the plot, and I say that very loosely because obviously we understand that the Bible is not a novel, it's not fiction. This is a very intentional God trying to very intentionally interact with the most priceless piece of his creation, which I know, it's you and I. To the point that God loves us so much, He was just like, you know what? I'm gonna send myself to go and be amongst these little flesh people, and I'm gonna save them. And so what we look at when we read the Bible, we are looking at a practical um example that God wants us to apply to our everyday in order to develop our relationship. If you look within the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, they're the two halves that make up the whole. Um, all Christ is, all God is trying to show us is simulations of the same principles of the relationship he wants to have with us. When he then comes in flesh, in human form, in the form of Jesus to save everybody. Jesus doesn't do much other than really re-establish and relay the example of what God was doing in in spiritual moments, in moments that points were intangible, that literally means that you couldn't see it, you couldn't touch it, you couldn't feel it. So I often say that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, that means it's the New Testament hidden, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So the things you didn't understand in the Old Testament, you're like, Why would God do that? And da da da da da. Jesus came and answered all of that. How do we know? Because the Jewish people were like, You've come to break the law, and you're just like, bro, pro, pro, I ain't here to do away with the law. I'm the fulfillment of the thing. So, everything that you didn't understand, Christ came and made very simple, and he explained, and then also left us the example, right? The most perfect example of how we should look to interact with God in heaven, right? We know that Jesus was God manifesting flesh, but he was here to show us the way, right? And he did it in perfection, and then left the example and was just like, this is how you develop your relationship with God. But before we get to that point, we're dealing with Job. And as you're aware, I'll do a very quick synopsis. Job was a very, very wealthy man that lived in the east. So, as we understand the east now, that region of the world would be what we're looking at as your Iraq and your Iran, Iraq being in biblical terms what we know as Babylon, and modern-day Iran in biblical times being what we know as Made-Persia, so the Persian Empire that we know historically that basically took over the world, right? That is Iran. Okay, so we're looking at a man that comes from that side of the world. What do we also know about that part of the world? The natural resources, the oil and the minerals and everything else. So Job is a person who is very well known in this part of the world and he has amassed great wealth. Great wealth. He's the richest man in that part of the world. Um, from his business ventures in terms of livestock to his family, to his servants, to what he has. And Job becomes the axis, he becomes the focal point, he becomes the centerpiece of a conversation. He was never there for. Some of you will know this. You know, when you kind of go to work, and let's say your manager calls a team meeting, or you're all going away on a team bonding situation, or you've got a project coming up, and there's a project manager who's maybe not the best project manager, and they've loosely told people what they should do. And imagine you walk into that said meeting, or you walk into that said situation, and you walk in thinking that everything is as it's always been, and then you've got colleagues and other people look at you like, Well, come on, then, and you're like, Come on, where exactly? And at that moment, when you're looking at everybody, there is an expectance in their eye line towards you, and you're sitting there and you're having this like inward conversation going, I don't have a clue what is going on here. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. There's obviously been a conversation I wasn't privy to and for, and at those moments, and I've seen this happen a couple of times, at those moments, that's when people sometimes will go a bit red, or they'll get embarrassed, or they'll get angry, or they're looking for the nearest exit. And if we're on a plane, it would be here, here, and here. Job is in this situation, and it's massively embarrassing because he's the type of person where Job would have had no problem in going to his family, going to his servants, going to his business partners and going, listen, boys, the jig's up. God has decided to put me on trial, and we ain't got no more money. We're done. Like, I'm gonna reduce what I have. I'm I'm going to corned beef and tuna sandwiches, or maybe it could just be you know honey sandwiches. He might even have no honey, he might not even have any butter. He might just have bread. Okay, it's just bread, bread and water. God gives him no heads up. And the worst part about this situation is that God is basically, even though God doesn't bet, he's basically having a bet with Lucifer, aka Satan. Okay, because there is in the beginning of time, Lucifer was a part of what we call the Sons of God, right? He was um well, his name was Lucifer Morningstar. He was bright, he was angelic, he he had massive kudos and presence and respect in heaven. But he decided that he could do a better job than God at not only running in heaven but the universe, and God being God, was just like, bruh, no, leave. So he kicked him out of heaven, and when God is having this conversation with his other sons, Satan walks in. So this teaches us a very, very important lesson. Though what you do may limit what you can do, it will never completely deny you the access based on who you are. When God sees Satan, he doesn't see well, he understands what Lucifer has become, but he he remembers him as he made him, but he deals with him based on the choices he made. Let me say that again. God deals with Lucifer on the basis of as he made him, right? But he has to transact his relationship with him on the basis of what he chose. Okay, so there is nothing that God will never forgive you or bring you back from, however, because he's giving you free will and choice, your free will and choice will come with consequences, repercussions, and elements of what you can and can't do based on what you chose to do. So Satan comes in and goes, like, where have you been? He's just like, What can happen now? He's just like seen Job. Satan's like listen, Job only does the stuff that you get happy about because you look after him, and go's like, well then touch stuff, okay? And we've seen in the last kind of four or five Bible studies everything in Job's life has been touched. Um, and where we pick the story up in chapter seven, Job now has his three pals, and our next four Bible studies are going to be about the friends we fellowship with in times of anguish. Okay, that's not today, that's what's gonna be coming because it is so important for me to break open sometimes. The importance we base on our friendships can sometimes override the plan and the purpose that God has for us. I'm gonna say that one more time. Sometimes the importance we place on our friendships, they sometimes undermine and override the purpose and the plan that God has for us. Okay? In our Bible study that we did last week, Job's friend was basically trying to say to him that, like, Job was explaining to him what happened and why he's feeling the way he's feeling, and Job's giving him them his side of the story. And you could very quickly see that his friends had already made up their mind about why they thought Job was in the situation that he was in. And as we read through the scripture, we started to see some of their some of their problems, some of their envy, some of their jealousy, some of their the ill feeling that they had toward what they perceived to be Job's blessing. And sometimes God is blessing you, and when you're going for a moment of doubt, fear, uncertainty, you're going to people that don't have the same relationship with God as you, and you're then trusting them to tell you about what God is doing in your life, and you're asking them to tell you what a person who they don't know is thinking about another person when those two people have their relationship. Because that makes sense, right? And let me give that even more context. We live in um the United Kingdom, okay? So we are a conglomerate of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England. Now, that's like me going to another person of that lives in the United Kingdom, either a Welshman, an Irishman, or a Scotsman, okay? And me having a conversation with them, and me then saying, Okay, there is a Tibetan man over there, okay? Or there's a Tibetan man that's about to fly in, and based on what's happening in the United Kingdom, that affects both England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I'm gonna ask the Tibetan man about what's happening here culturally, and he's gonna tell me in his language. Firstly, how is anybody gonna understand anybody? We're not, unless I speak Tibetan or he has perfect English. Secondly, I am asking a person who is absolutely adverse to the culture, the environment, the structure that I'm used to to tell me conclusively what they think is or isn't happening here, and yet the person or people that are experiencing the same thing as me, that live in the same environment as me, has access to the same information as me, I am negating them because I'd rather talk to the Tibetan man. This is semi-what's happening with Job. Job's friends are now coming to him in his state of grief and anguish. You're going, oh Job, this is so bad. Oh Job, I can't believe this is your situation. And then going, but you are a bit arrogant, aren't you, Job? Your kids are a bit annoying, they're a bit terrible in me. And you're like, pun. Well, you know, you have always been a bit, you know. We always thought you were doing naughty things on the side, Job. This is the conversation he's having with his friends. His friends that he thought knew him, his friends that he thought understood him, his friends that he thought would be there for him when everybody else would refuse to believe him, listen to him, trust him. Job was convinced that these three guys that they got it, and they didn't. And Job learned a very, very, very valuable lesson that sometimes the people you go to who you expect to understand what you're going through, they're the last people that do understand. Because they're a judge, they're judging you based on what they perceive you to be doing, not what they know you're doing. Okay, so we're gonna jump into um chapter seven. I'm gonna look at verse one and I'm gonna read, and then I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna look at some points, and we're just gonna go through them, we'll talk about them together. Um, Job is still in this state where he is trying to express, express, express, excuse me, express without spitting everywhere. Um, the magnitude of what he's feeling, and how uneasy and how unbalanced he's feeling in this moment. So he opens it up in verse 1 and he says, Do not mortals have hard service on earth? Good question. Are not there days like those of hired laborers? Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired laborer waiting to be paid. So I have been allotted months of futility and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down, I think how long before I get up? The night drags on and I toss and turn until dawn. My body is clothed. Listen to this. This is such like graphic imagery. My body is clothed with worms and scabs. My skin is broken and festering. You only start to make statements like this when your suffering goes beyond the point of your own comprehension. It's something to learn about how we are as humans and who we are as people. Our ability to understand is directly linked to our ability to endure. I'm gonna say that one more time. Your ability to understand is directly linked to your ability to endure. If you want to break a person, okay, sentence them to a prison sentence and don't tell them how long they're going for. Why? Because the minute I can put a time frame or I can put uh a concept around what I'm going into, what I'm coming out of, what I'm trying to create, our whole lives are managed and based on the axis of what? Time. That's what allows us to break away from God being this horrible person. Because we said, God, you can't be loving. How can you be kind and good and all these things if you're gonna have a conversation about a person that really didn't ask you to have his name in in his mouth, right? There's no point here where God says to us when he's talking to his sons, like, yeah, you know what? Uh Job was praying to me the other day, and I was just, you know, taking up the prayers. And he was like, Well, you know, God, I'm I'm doing bits. I'm out here serving and and living and and thriving, and we got stuffs. There was no point where God, where Job was like, God, sign me up. I'll have some trials, I'll have some tribulations, I'll get in the middle of yours and and and Lucifer's beef that I wasn't there for in the beginning when it kicked off. But what was God trying to show him? That time is a matrix that he uses to merely measure moments. Slap me in the face a little bit. Time is merely the matrix that God uses to measure moments. Right? That's the reason why God was in no rush to come and aid Job. Because you and I are experiencing time as it happens, God sees it as it is. So in God's mind, the basis of Job's suffering had been less than 10 seconds, because he's just like, Well, I just had the conversation, I just told Dummy over there that he can go and do some stuff, and time is like that small. How do we know this? Because the Bible says that to the Lord, the Bible gives us the measurement metric of how God sees time. What does the Bible say? That a day is like a thousand years. No, no, no. Break that down, okay? That one day to God is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is as like a day, right? Now, that is us being given a rough time measurement metric to understand how in a very small way, right? In a small way of apprehension, how God thinks, and this is so deep. I actually wanna I'm gonna we're gonna do a little bit of quick math so that we can understand it because I need you to understand this, and what we're gonna try and do is we're gonna put this little calculator in the top right hand side of the screen so you can see the maths we're gonna do, okay? So, if a day to God is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day, let's get the equivalency, okay? So, when you go to God and you say, God, I'm going through some stuff and this is peak. Lord, I need you to work this out today. Your version of a day is what? 24 hours. It's why many of us have a problem with understanding creation because we liken the six and seven days of creation to the six, seven days that we understand our natural day to be. However, the Bible has given us a very clear, a very clear uh uh uh pillar for us to understand how God conceptualizes time. So we're saying that a day is 24 hours, the Bible's saying that a day to God is a thousand years, so let's do the math, okay? So your 24 hours goes up against God's day, right? So if we're going to figure out what a thousand years in day capacity is, then we have to look at that as hours, right? So what you're gonna do is you're gonna do 24 times by 365, okay, because it's 24 hours in a day, 365 days, and we're not gonna go leap year, we'll do the normal year, 365, which then gives you 8,760 hours. Now I need you to remember this. A day to God is a thousand years, okay? A thousand years like a day. Now, if our regular human day is 24 hours, in a year's term, right, 8,760 hours still has not got cle even close to God's time metric. Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take that year, because the Bible says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. So if we know that 24 times 365 gives us that that calculation of a year, then 8,760 times by what? 1,000 gives us one, two, three. 8,760,000 hours. The time period of your day is twenty-four hours, and I'm gonna do the mouse in a second. The time period by which God measures a day, okay? Hours to hours. So yours is 24 hours, that's your day. His day eight million, seven hundred and sixty thousand hours. Do you know how much stuff could grow in eight million, seven hundred, and sixty? Thousand and remember that's one day, okay. Now, what I'm gonna do is so that we can understand how far in between God's idea and timing and planning is to ours. If we want to figure out the difference, all we do is we take 24 off of 8,760,000 to just see just how far apart our idea of time is to God's idea of time. So let's do that maths. Minus 24. Ladies and gentlemen, that leaves us with okay, here is the time difference in the calculations for a day between how we calculate it and God sees it. 8,759,976. And sometimes we miss these things when we read the Bible, because a lot of us read the Bible as a fictional novel, filled with these archaic terms and words that hearken back to a time that archaeologists, archaeologists are still digging for. No, no, no. We are serving and live under the stewardship of a creator that sees everything. What we don't know, what we've discovered, what we're living, what's to come, and what we can never fathom. This is who is standing at the apex and in the center of Job's greatest trial in his life. Okay, so in the first five verses of chapter 7, Job is caught, he's recalling some of his experiences almost in disbelief. There are things that you've gone through when me and my father were talking the other day, and he was explaining something to me and he burst out laughing. Now, this wasn't his normal laugh, we call this the it's you can sometimes go through things and it's so wild you don't know whether to get angry, you don't know whether to cry, you don't know whether just to pass out, and sometimes he just burst out laughing because there is a saying that goes, if you don't laugh, you'll cry, right? And Job right now is in a state and a situation where what he's experiencing is so visceral to him, he's just trying to make sense of what makes no sense. Can you imagine how maddening that feels? To try to make sense of something that has no sense. It's like trying to grab a kite in the middle of a hurricane. It's almost impossible. It's almost impossible. We see him going over the rudiments of what he believes a righteous person should do, and he can't understand why he's finding himself in this position. Okay, let's go to verse um number six of chapter seven. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. This is a person's moving towards suicidal thoughts, guys. Remember, oh god, that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never see happiness again. It's okay to think the worst in moments of pain and grief. Just don't put a down payment on worst becoming reality. The book of Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 15 says, For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities. The Bible tells us, No, no, no, he feels it. Oh my god, he feels it. What did Jesus say on the cross? My god, my god, why have you forsaken me? Jesus was like, You said you'd never leave me. I'm feeling a little forsaken right now. I'm feeling a little on my own on this little wooden crossboard thing you got me on with the sins of these crazy people that you sent me here to save. Isaiah prophesied that he was a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. Surely he hath borne all of our sins to the point he went on to tell us what he was gonna go through. Right? So Job isn't speaking hopelessly, however, he feels abandoned, and there's nothing worse than an abandonment feeling alone. Now that was the beauty of the Bible study last week. We're saying, okay, he's abandoned, he feels abandoned, but yeah, he's not alone. Sometimes you're going to feel abandoned, but you aren't alone, and even within your grief, allow your spirit to anchor to that trust. That same trust that Hebrews 11 speaks about. For faith is a substance of things, hope for faith, intangible. It's your belief system, it's your rock, you can't see it, you see it or you believe it to see it. That makes sense, right? Faith is not tangible. What makes it tangible is your ability to believe in what you can't see, which then creates conviction, conviction to belief, belief to action, and kaboom, there we go. Manifestation, it starts to come, it's here, it's happening. Okay? Now, in verses 5 to 10, my days are swifter than the weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. Remember, oh God, that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never see happiness again. The eye that now sees me will see me no longer. You will look for me, but I will be no more. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again, his place will know him no more. Job has lost his his desire and his hunger for life. He's in a place where he feels utterly abandoned by God. And there is no comfort for him from those that surround him and are close to him. There is no comfort for him in them or from them. Because he's also starting to understand that they do not believe him on the basis of why he's going through the things he's going through. You see, there are some things that God will allow you to go to not because he's trying to draw you closer to other people, but because he's trying to connect you closer to him. What does the Bible say about God's word? That his word is firmer than his throne. So when God stops speaking, his word doesn't stop doing. Hello? When God stops speaking, that does not mean his word stops doing. How do we know this? The Bible tells us in the book of Genesis, chapter one, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and the spirit of God moved across the face of the deep, and then he what did what did God starts to do? He started to speak, and God said, and God said, and God said, Creation happened for 26 verses in chapter 1 in eternity past. What God did in eternity past is still working today. God stopped speaking after the sixth day. After he said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heavenly hosts come, we're gonna make these little creatures called men and women, and we're gonna put them and give them dominion. Shaboosh. God did all that creation in six days, and he stopped speaking to creation and within creation after those six days. Yet, millennia's later, here we are doing a royal job of screwing up his perfection. Yeah, we are. Look what's happening with the planet. Yeah, we are. We're doing a brilliant job of wrecking his handiwork, but yet, creation, nature still answers to the call of the creator. So though God may have stopped speaking, his word is still active and is doing. But if you don't know what his word says, how are you gonna know that? So in those first, in those second five verses, Job and and let's keep it 100, Job's feeling suicidal. Hello? Job is feeling suicidal. It's taken seven chapters from him to go from a man that was making sacrifices and offerings and praying and covering his kids. He was the same guy that said, Shall we not accept evil as well as good? Is he not God in good and in bad? That was Job's first response when this stuff started happening. Which tells us what? That experience and tribulation and trial has a way of wearing us down. It has a way of dissolving our resolve. Dissolved resolve. That's that's a Bible study for another time, not right now. This is the same man that said to his wife when she turned around and she said, Listen here, brother. Yo, I think you need to give up the ghost because this God that you love and serve, he obviously don't love you. And Job refused to even call his wife a fool, even though she was. He says, You are speaking like you see, trial and tribulation will distort the image of who you're supposed to be. The same way sin did in the garden. Because what did God say? He said to the heavenly host, Come, let us make man in our image and in our likeness, and what came in and distorted the image of that, of that divine holiness, sin. Our decision to want to know beyond what we had the capacity to understand. Why would you say that, Sean? Because when Eve is having a conversation with Luther in the garden, and he's like, Don't you want to eat it? She's like, I do, but God said, We'll surely die. This dum-dum, both of them were dumb-dums at that point. This dum-dum like, oh well, okay. Because Luther was like, Well, you won't surely die because she didn't have the capacity to understand what God was saying. It wasn't an instantaneous, eh, I'm done. It was you are going to lose the preservative that makes you who you are, and without me, you are dead. Why? Because it's the spirit that quickens and makes alive. When your spirit exits this natural body, you think you're gonna be up and down and moving. Uh-uh. Your spirit is the thing that animates you, it's what activates the humanity. This physical expression of you in this world is transacted by that thing that sits in your core. Anybody that's ever watched The Avengers or Iron Man, I don't know, that's Avengers, no, no, fan. Your spirit is like Tony Stark's art reactor. We all saw what happened when the art reactor got a bit fiddly or faulty or it didn't work. Bye bye, Tony. All that genius, all that creation, all that money, all that nouse, all that. What's the word I'm looking for when a person is all that respect and appreciation and adoration. But the minute the thing that creates him and makes him who he is goes, that's how we were. When we allowed sin to enter into the world, we became dead. That was the Jews' problem with Christ. He was like, I haven't come here to break you free from Rome and taxes and occupation. I've come to get rid of that spiritual debt you can't shift. You want to sit here for 70 years or 80 years, and oh, we're having such a great time. What about eternity? But Job shows us that there are moments and times when what you're going through can shade what you know, and it can colour the world into a place and uh uh um it can give it a shade that doesn't help you recognize what you once knew. Um, verse 12 Am I the sea? Actually, let's go verse 11. Therefore, I will not keep silent, I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit. Told you that he's feeling way. Man just said it himself. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea or the monster of the deep that you put me under guard when I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint? Joe's like, bruh, that lazy boy ain't even working. Got myself some nice some nice furniture bits. I can't even sleep on the couch. The L-shape is not L-shaping, the the vibrations, the massaging is not massaging. It's not doing what it's supposed to do. Okay? Um verse 14, and this is the bit that really got me. It really got me. Um a lot of the time when people are having um when they're going through emotional or psychological hardships, one of the few places that gives them solace and pain, solace and pain, solace and rest, is sleep. It's their ability to go and sleep. Why? Um, because through sleep the mind resets and regenerates itself. My father being in ministry for as long as he has, I've seen situations where he's been trying to help people or he's been called in, um, and and people that are either having um psychiatric breakdowns or or they're really struggling on a mental level. Anytime that they have been taken into an institutional facility, the first thing they do is they medicate them to sleep, and they they they just try to get them to sleep for a good period of time. Why? Because there is regenerative and resetting rest within sleep. But listen to this in verse 14. Um, let me start in 13 to give it context. When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch release my complaint, verse 14. Even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions so that I prefer strangling and death rather than this body of mine. I despise my life. I wouldn't live forever. Leave me alone. My days have no meaning. What is man that you make so much of him? That you give them so much attention that you examine them every morning and test them every moment. Will you never look away from me? Or let me alone even for an instant. This is Joe talking to God. To a God that he loves, that he serves. He's saying, Are you surely I can't be the only one? Surely there must be some respite for me. Surely I haven't angered you so much. And this this is maddening for a man that knows he's done no wrong. It's like getting framed for the perfect crime, and the people you expect to be like, No, no, I trust you, I'll believe, I'll come with you. Are like I always knew you were, I always knew you were criminal, you little convict. They should throw away the key. This is how Job's feeling. Um let's jump into verse 19. Will you never look away from me or let me alone even for an instant? And 20. This is very, it's very deep and very beautiful. If I have sinned, what have I done to you? There's nothing worse than a person that and what's the word I'm just looking for? There's a word I'm looking for. I'm not proud to say it, but I've sometimes been in a situation where a person's done something like, I'm not gonna say, but if you think mean you're cool, we ain't cool, bro. Or sister, we ain't cool. And what I'll do is I won't say nothing, and I'll just keep it very PR and it's very friendly. But you know when warmth has been taken out of a situation or an interaction, you know when kindness has been taken out, you know when a person is doing the bare minimum, when they're used to going above and beyond, right? And this is where Job is. That Job is he's just like, you know what, hands up because he goes, God, I might be living in a twilight zone, and I might be this might be a Jekyll and Hyde situation, and then I might wake up in the middle of the night and be doing mad stuff, and you're just like, No. And he turns and he says to God, um, he just says, If I have sinned, what have I done to you? And he goes, You who sees everything we do, why have you made me your target? Have I become a but Job says to God, have I become a burden? Have I become a burden to you? Job is so he's so beaten down from what's going on, he's just like, look, this whole ringing me out and torturing me and stuff, he's just like, look, if you want to kill me and get rid of like, cool, let let's let's let's just be done with it. These are questions of a person that no longer possesses the strength or the plan or has the comprehension to understand, work out or solve what he's in. Verse 21, it kind of breaks my heart a little bit. He says, Why do you not pardon my offences and forgive my sins? I teach, and um I have very interesting kids, and you can see them because their personalities and stuff are coming through. And there's a couple of students I have that they often sometimes get in the way of the more mischievous students who like to do I don't want to say naughty because compared to stuff I was doing when I was a kid, it's not really naughty, it's just kind of a little mischievous, a bit cheeky. And sometimes I will want them to come and tell me what they've done, and so what I'll do is I will address the whole class, and I will be like, somebody has taken this from this space, or they've done that after I said no, or they've done da da da da, and I'd like to know who it is, and you know who it is. Well, at least I do as a teacher. Um, but sometimes I look at and I call them my little munchkins, I look at some of my smaller munchkins, they'll be like, I don't think I did it, and I I I and you're like, I wasn't talking to you, and you can see they're really searching their little heart to be like, I promise you I didn't, and I want to be like, I know, I know it was him. But because of what I'm trying to do, I can't allow them to know that I know that what they did was they didn't do anything wrong, right? And when I read this, Joe came across to me like that. He was just like, Well, I don't think I've I sinned, but if I have, like, please forgive me. And if you won't, like, why won't you forgive me? And there's nothing worse than seeing a person apologise for something they didn't do, and being really broken about it, and the person that you know did do it is kind of just sitting in the corner being like, Oh, this is amazing, I'm getting away with everything. And then he says, After he says, Why do you not pardon my offences and forgive my sins? He then says, For I will soon lie down in the dust. You will search for me, but I will be no more. It's such uh it's such a powerful story and book because it's easy for me to sit here and say, Well, trust God, even in grief. Trust God, even in doubt, trust God, even in fear, trust God, even No matter what's going on. But then you sometimes hold up the mirror of reflection to moments like this, and I was thinking about my own life and my own circumstances, and and I look at certain situations where I sometimes freak out to God, right? And um I'm gonna be really honest. I read Job's story and I'm like, Lord, I forgive me for wasting your time. Because I'm not sitting here with you know, house burnt down, kids dead, servants gone, stocks dissolved, wife telling me I'm gonna leave you and you should leave that god, friends rolling up and being like we always knew you're a bit of a you know, think you get in, you come uppence. The stuff some of the stuff I worry about is stuff that I've kind of mismanaged, and I'm like, Lord help me please. Some of the stuff I worry about is stuff that God's already told me he's gonna take care of. And he doesn't mind that I freak out about it. The Bible's showing us here that God has no problem with the grief, he just said that the grief must be insulated by trust. Grief must be insulated by trust. Why? Because in chapter 2, the Bible said, and in all that Job was feeling, and all that he said, and all that he was going through, he did not charge God falsely, nor did he sin. Can you sit here knowing that God hasn't done a fraction to you or allowed you to go through what Job has? And here's the other thing at least you've got Job, the book of Job to read. Job didn't have the book of Job to read. Job is getting there going. Oh my gosh, at least we have the book of Job to read. At least we have Psalms 34 to read. And let me actually go into Psalms 34 because that scripture is so deep. Okay, because what Psalms 34 does, it helps to give us context as to sometimes the and I don't mean how I'm gonna say this, I'm not using it low um loosely, sometimes the bipolar feeling nature of the world around us. One minute, amazing, next minute, oh my gosh, one minute you're on the top of the mountain, in the next minute, you're just you're you're you're it you're worse and lower than the valley, right? But grief cannot be allowed to be uninsulated or not have the insulation of trust, trust and obey in all that Job said and did. He did not charge God foolishly, nor did he sin. I'm gonna give you um a little bit of backstory of what's going on in Psalm chapter 34. This psalm is directly linked to, I believe, the first book of Samuel, chapter 21. David has killed Goliath, Saul is extremely jealous of him, and he's like, That boy has to go. He's like, No, no, he has to die, he cannot stay, he's gotta go. And David goes and basically hangs out with the Philistines who also want to kill him. Why? Because Gath, where he's hanging out, is the hometown of that's right, you got it, Goliath. And those people, if you're a young kid and you go and murk a giant, oh trust me, people are gonna know exactly who you are. And David is hanging out with the enemy because he can't go home to the family, and he has to pretend to be mental. The Bible says he was scratching and spitting on himself, so much so that when they told Akish the king, we've got David, he was like, Shut up! He was like, Yeah, we've got him. He's like, bring him in. I'm like, you should come and see him. He's like, Why? Like, I king. He's like, No, they bring Akish to David when when Akish gets to David, David's scratching on the door, he's dribbling and spitting on himself. So much so that Akish is like, we can't kill him. What glory are we gonna get from killing this madman? So much so that they just usher him out of the city to go, listen, you can't stay, get out. This is what we're reading in Psalm 34. I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise will always be on my lips. This is a man that's been run out of his hometown. I will glorify him the Lord, let the afflicted hear and rejoice, glorify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together. This guy just finished spitting on himself. Spitting on himself, okay? For I sought the Lord and he answered me, he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame. Now it's starting to make sense, right? Why would you say those that look upon him are radiant? He's not going for a radiant moment. Why would you say they're never covered in shame? This guy's just finished spitting on himself. So things that sometimes we see do not define what really is. Right? So to look at David, you'd sit there and be like, This is a madman, he's got no prospects, the the people that should love him and and and and and um be rejoicing with him, they want to kill him. But when God has put his plan, his purpose, and his hand on you, sometimes we believe that where we're going to is a destination, it's not. Why? Because he's trying to teach us the art of relationship through process. How can you trust and obey if you never have moments that cause you to doubt the thing you trust and cause you to not want to obey the thing that you're supposed to obey? Okay, so he just said said there in verse 5 of Psalm chapter 34, this is David Those who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame. Then verse 6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him, he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Here's the key verse Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. Job secured the back end of his blessing because he feared God more than he hated the situation he found himself in. We were reading it. Job got to a place where he didn't want to be here anymore, he didn't want to live, he he had got to the end of his his human endurance because he feared God. Because he loved God. Because he trusted God. He was in a he was able to endure a moment that came to kill him. We're gonna get to one of the I'm not sure if we will get to the passage, but there's a passage in the later chapters of Job and it says, There is hope for a tree. Though it be cut down and the stock means the root wax old. Yet the smell at the scent of water, it will bud again. You think that God needs to do some miraculous thing? No, it's just the tree that got cut. The stump and the roots are still good. And if you get in the atmosphere of water, because what is water? Life. If you can get around the atmosphere of life, that verse I just quoted is in the book of Job. At the scent of water, the atmosphere, that tree that was cut down, hit the bud again. You just gotta hang in there. Thank you all for taking the time to hang out with us today. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, share the Bible study with friends. Also, take the Bible study notes that are in the description, guys. And we will see you next time. Have a great rest of your day, have a great week, and don't forget, please comment, please send in your notes or any of your comments and stuff if you want to hear anything specifically or you want to have questions about what we've been teaching about or what we're talking about, please don't hesitate. We're an open book, and we want to help any way we can. Have a great day, guys.