| Passage: Job 24-28 On Sunday, June 17, 2018, Yujin wrote, Of all that man has achieved above all God's creation, none of it compares to wisdom. It is more precious than anything in God's creation. Even death and destruction can only marvel at its mystery (Job 28:22). Yet, "God understands its way, and He knows its place...He saw it and declared it; He established it and also searched it out" (Job 28:23,27).
This morning I was praising God because all my earthly affairs seem in order, and I am going on vacation. Then I thought, what if I had an accident along the way. What if my wife contracts a deadly disease. What if my child drowns in the ocean waters. What if the TaeKwonDo launches become duds. Then, I thought. So what?! I know the LORD, and He has given me His salvation in Christ. It is enough, and I am abounding with joy. Friends, when we fear the LORD, temporal concerns become as nothing because of the magnitude of God's glorious grace in Christ. When we understand that our enduring good rests in God alone, then all our concentration and our efforts focus on obedience to Him. I praise God that my eternal affairs are in order! I praise God that my wife and child know and love the Lord! I praise God that I have the privilege of worshiping Him, serving Him, and fulfilling His purpose for my life! Praise the LORD! |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Saturday, June 17, 2017 (Last Updated on 6/16/2021), Yujin wrote,
In Hebrew poetry, each line is said to be in parallel. In other words, the second line in some way restates the first line. It may do so "synonymously," such that they simply say the same thing in different words. It may do so "antithetically," such that the second line says the same as the first but presents it in the negative. For example, in Proverbs 15:20, we read,
Job 28:28 is an example of synonymous parallelism. This is signficant because we can then make the connection between the different elements in each line. Where "wisdom" corresponds to "understanding" synonymously, so "the fear of the Lord" corresponds to "to depart from evil" synonymously. Friends, what does it mean to fear the Lord, a common refrain throughout the Scriptures? In Proverbs, we read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). In Ecclesiastes, the fear of the Lord represents the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13). When we apply the principle of parallelism to Job 28:28, we disern that to fear the Lord means to depart from evil. We might even say that if fearing God represents the proper mind and attitude for believers, then departing from evil ought to be the resulting behavior and action. We must not simply think about it. The fear of the Lord requires that we move away from evil and toward God. It demands that our faith become obedience. |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 (Last Updated on 7/17/2021), Yujin wrote,
The "fear of the LORD" equals "to depart from evil," even as wisdom equals understanding. These ideas are in parallel, so that the same central truth is reinforced from one line to the other. So we read in Proverbs 3:7, "Fear the Lord and shun evil," and Proverbs 14:16, "The wise fear the Lord and shun evil." Only God knows wisdom, and He tells man that wisdom lies in fearing God and departing from evil. So, wisdom is spiritual and moral. Wisdom is not about great leadership or achievement. It is not about excellence in work or enterprise. Wisdom is not about staying healthy or gaining wealth. Wisdom is not patriotism or the upholding of some democratic idea. Wisdom is all about trusting and obeying God's Word, so that one can be morally upright and spiritually pleasing to God. Friends, what are you caught up with these days? Work? Some family project? Some personal fitness goal? Are you saving up for something special? Are you reading an interesting book or watching an absorbing tv series? Does it have some spiritual or moral dimension to it? If it doesn't, then it is not wisdom. It will simply come and go with the wind. It will have no lasting significance. In God's economy, it will be among the vain things that preoccupy foolish minds. Here's my counsel. Convert your vain plans, activities, and pursuits, which come so natural to you, into moral and spiritual endeavors. Convert your workplace into an outreach. See the spiritual and moral dimension in the mundane, so that they will have some eternal significance. Find out where and how you can apply the commands of God to the various facets of your daily events and relationships. There can be a spiritual and moral dimension to everything we do. We just need to be purposeful about it, and we need to fall on the right side of it. |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Monday, June 16, 2014, Yujin wrote, And to man He said, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; When we think of wisdom and understanding, we often think of them as something intellectual or worldly practical, as a means of gaining some material or physical benefit; however, the Bible consistently declares that at the heart of all wisdom and understanding is the fear of the LORD. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; To fear God in the Bible is to know, trust and obey God. How is this wisdom? God is the Maker, Designer, Sustainer, and Mover of all things in the universe. Would He not know better than anyone how everything works to its greatest and best effect? He understands both what is seen and unseen as well as what is and what is yet to be, so that there is nothing hidden from His perspective or that comes as a surprise to Him. He is not bound by the temporal limitations of finite men but is both infinite and eternal. Therefore, can there be any greater wisdom than to know, trust and obey God? Therefore, friends, let us make it our chief priority to know Him. He has given us His Word so that we might know Him as we should. Even though God is also revealed in creation and human experience, these are unreliable at best. Just consider all the different and conflicting claims on God by those that testify of "experiencing God". Only the Bible can be fully trusted. Once we begin to know God through His Word, then we can diligently trust and obey what He has revealed for us to do in that very same Word, for the Word of God, the Bible, is sufficient to guide us into everything we need to understand and do to please God: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Monday, June 17, 2013, Yujin wrote, Job has a fascinanting monologue about wisdom: But where can wisdom be found? Job says that wisdom, with its corollary, understanding, cannot be found in the land of the living. That means no living thing can discern it within the context of the natural universe. He says that man does not know how valuable this wisdom is. He explains that it cannot be bought, sold or exchanged. There is no precious thing that can match its value. Job says that wisdom has been hidden from all living things. Even death and destruction claim only a second-hand awareness of it. But then he declares... God understands its way, God knows because he sees everything that exists. In fact, He has established the substance, measure, activity, and limitation of every existing thing. And this is what He says to mankind: Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; In Job's monologue in defense of his integrity, he declares to his misguided friends that he is fully aware of where wisdom and understanding lie, that it is in trusting and obeying the Lord. Friends, we have been given access to wisdom that the natural person can neither perceive nor understand. Such wisdom can only be perceived by revelation from the Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul writes the same thing to the believers in Corinth: For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:11-14). So then, if we are given this wisdom from God and enabled to perceive and understand it by the Holy Spirit, we possess something very precious indeed. Some people may admire me for spending so much time reading and meditating on the Scriptures every day, but there is nothing in me to admire, for I know it is pure folly to do otherwise. Would fellow beggars admire another beggar for going regularly to a place to eat good and free food? I have this daily quiet time because it is free, it is good, it nourishes me, and keeps my soul from starvation. But at the end of the day, I am simply a beggar like anyone else. But only a fool would forego what is so good and free. |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Monday, June 18, 2012, Fernando wrote, In Job 24, the observation that evil gets away with their deeds is made by Job, David, Asaph, and even by people today. I love the Bible's honesty. This is true! It seems unfair that one can commit evils their whole life and seemingly get caught in their old age, if at all. In a recent financial indictment, the FBI had conversations recorded from 2008 which lead to a 2012 conviction. That means at least 4 years of activity. But something had to have caused the original investigation so they must have suspected earlier, which means the man likely did this kind of activity before without detection; an activity for 5 or 6 years - he lived well from his financial gains. The book of James and some of the books we just read chronicling times of Israel, we are told to consider times of injustice as a test. To prove yourself to be with God. In an elementary sense we are told to do right, always. Even if it leads to our death, or a loss, or a shaming. If we are righteous, like God, even if we are surrounded by evil, being unlike them, we act well since we are light. Even if we perceive injustice, we are not temporally purposed. Since we are meant to be positioned for eternity we can perform and should perform well now. 1 Corinthians 10:13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. Do not seek to justify poor behavior; you are thinking incorrectly, if so. You should seek humbling behavior. Behavior that shows you nor anyone but God is in control, and is the one to have the last laugh... Per se. |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Sunday, June 17, 2012 (Last Updated on 6/16/2015), Yujin wrote, I will never concede that you are right; I will defend my integrity until I die. I will maintain my innocence without wavering. My conscience is clear for as long as I live. (Job 27:5, 6 NLT) Today, Job would be considered arrogrant and proud. How could he say such a thing? As Bildad says, How can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone born of a woman be pure? (Job 25:4 NLT) David would echo Bildad's words in his penitential psalm: For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5 NLT) Therefore, what right does Job have to claim innocence and integrity? But Job was not claiming perfection, only a clear conscience and a willingness to hear any valid charge against him of wrongdoing: Teach me, and I will keep quiet. Show me what I have done wrong. (Job 6:24 NLT) The problem was that none of his friends had any valid charge against him. They were arguing from their experience, their general, and later we discover, flawed knowledge of God, and human philosophy. Why should he follow their counsel to admit to some invented wrongdoing, especially when he is always humble and pleading mercy and forgiveness from God, for Job says, If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you? Why not just forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust and die. When you look for me, I will be gone.” (Job 7:20, 21 NLT) Sometimes, various brothers come to me to rebuke me for this or that. They never seriously challenge the content of what I write or say with respect to God's Word. Instead, they say, "You shouldn't contradict the leadership" or "You shouldn't try to change what has been in our tradition for years" or "Did you know that this leader was hurt because of what you wrote?" or "Do you know you are challenging my authority when you say things that directly disagrees with what I've taught?" or "You are spiritually proud" or "Even if what you say is true, you are naive if you don't realize that people need to have the truth modified" or "Unless it has to do with the core issue of the Gospel you should be silent about everything else that disagrees with the leadership." Perhaps I'm giving myself too much credit when I say this, but I would like to direct all my dear detractors to Job's words, which are very much my own, "I will never concede you are right" as long as I am persuaded in the Lord that I am speaking and teaching God's truth in love. Show me what I am doing wrong from God's Word, and not by just extracting a verse out of context like "Obey your leaders," as if this is a blanket command to tow the line even when it is contrary to God's Word or conscience. Otherwise, study the Scriptures and let us seriously dialogue together about both God's truth and our responsibility to proclaim it to others, whether laymen or clergy. Yet, I would always request prayer for myself, that I would continue to proclaim God's truth clearly and boldly as I should. |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Sunday, June 19, 2011 (Last Updated on 6/17/2023), Unmi wrote, |
| Passage: Job 24-28 On Thursday, June 17, 2010, Sherry wrote,
28:12 - "But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?" |