God Is Bigger | Devotional | Job 15:7

Are you the first man who was born? Or were you brought forth before the hills? — Job 15:7 Ok, remember that each one of Job's friends gets a turn to speak and counsel Job on the reason for his present suffering. In chapter 15, we begin round two with each of the three friends. So now we are back to the first of Job's friends, Eliphaz. Eliphaz is still convinced that Job is guilty of sin, which is the exclusive reason for his present suffering. But now, he will notch it up by proposing that Job's claim of suffering as righteous is preposterous. He claims this would be like comparing himself to the sinless state of Adam before the fall. So here is a little historical caveat for you today. Based on all the internal evidence found in the book of Job, we can conclude that Job is one of the earliest books in the entire Bible. Theologians believe, with high probability, that Moses wrote the book. He probably wrote it before he wrote the first five books of the Bible — what we commonly call the Pentateuch (i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). But what's especially interesting is that Job and Moses lived after the flood. And this is important because the flood was God's punishment for humanity's perpetual disobedience. What was once good in the garden was given over to increasing sin and selfishness. Therefore God destroyed life on the earth because he was grieved. He made man and saw that the intentions of man's heart was nothing but evil. But remember, God saved a few people — Noah and his family. Then from Noah's family, a new genealogy originated, and Job was one of those descendants. So were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. I would assume that the flood and Adam's fall in the Garden were on their minds as they were contemplating the reason for Job's suffering. And in the end, they have concluded that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between disobedience and God's punishment, as well as obedience and God's blessing. It would be easy to conclude this if you assume Noah's righteousness saved him. But Noah's righteousness did not save Noah and his family. It was God's favor, and this favor was evidenced by Noah's faith. For proof of this, turn to Genesis 6:8 and Hebrews 11:7. Note: Noah was a sinner, just like us. There was nothing righteous he could do to be saved. It was simply God's favor that saved him. God was about to destroy all mankind because all mankind grieved him. I wonder if some of Eliphaz's wrong theological misconceptions came from drawing this wrong connection. Now I don't know for sure, but these three men definitely picked up their corrupt reasoning somewhere. And they are using historical events as evidence for their position. Eliphaz does so here, reaching back to Adam in the garden pre-fall. This is called deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is where we develop a hypothesis and look for evidence to prove the point. But their reasoning has resulted in them bending the truth in a direction that suits them. And why do they do this? Because we all want to believe that if you do what is right and righteous, you will receive a blessing. We all want to believe that if we attend to our marriages righteously, raise our kids to honor God, work ethically in a way that pleases the Lord, and love our neighbors, that everything will work out for us, and God will bless us. But that's not the case. You know that's not the case. And what we learn from these three men here is that when our reasoning is corrupted by selfish tendencies, we will find ways to mold God to our views and our ways. Left to ourselves, we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. — AW Tozer. Check out other all Vince Miller's videos and audios for small groups at: https://beresolute.org/ Get Vince's most widely read resources The Daily Devotional at: https://beresolute.org/mdd Check out more ALL IN products like the one Vince is wearing at: https://beresolute.org/product-category/all-in-hats/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Connect with Vince socially: FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/millervince INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/vinceleemiller LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemiller TWITTER: https://twitter.com/vinceleemiller