Maranatha Grace Church

Theodicy: Attempt to vindicate the justice and holiness of God in light of the existence of evil in the world. If God is both all-powerful and all-loving as the Bible everywhere claims, then how can evil continue to exit in the world? How can the wicked prosper if God is just? Why  do good people suffer, and how could God let it happen? The book of Job is one biblical response to this question.

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 25 Job 1 & 2  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

²⁰ Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. ²¹ And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” ²² In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.  (Job 1:20-22)

A good pastor friend of our church, Pastor Lafortune Lorgeat, died suddenly a while ago, the very day of his forty first birthday. So young! It made no sense. I was at lost as many other pastors and Christians were to explain that lost. At the end we had to say as Job said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 26 Job 3 & 4  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

 ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
 Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker? (Job 4:17)

The key to really understand the questions raised by the book is to keep in mind what came before the testing of Job (Chapters 1 & 2) and what came after the testing (Chapter 42). In chapter 42:7 we read, “After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” At the beginning the Bible says, “Job did not sin” (1:22), and at the end we are told that “Job has spoken the truth about God (42:7).”

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
 neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
 so are my ways higher than your ways
 and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 27 Job 5 & 6  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁸ “Oh, that I might have my request,
 that God would grant what I hope for,
⁹ that God would be willing to crush me,
 to let loose his hand and cut off my life!
¹⁰ Then I would still have this consolation—
 my joy in unrelenting pain—
 that I had not denied the words of the Holy One. (Job 6:8-10)

Job’s love for the words of the Holy One correlates with his love for the Holy One. He teaches us, Christians, that we must read the Bible and cherish the Word of the God if we want to grow in faith, hope and love. The Lord Jesus himself demonstrated that 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4).

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 28 Job 7 & 8  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁶ “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
 and they come to an end without hope.
⁷ Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
 my eyes will never see happiness again.
⁸ The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
 you will look for me, but I will be no more.
⁹ As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
 so one who goes down to the grave does not return.
¹⁰ He will never come to his house again;
 his place will know him no more (.Job 7:6-10)

Job, though a faithful servant of the Lord, did not have the full revelation of the eternal plan of God for humanity. Like any Old Testament believer, he did not know about the resurrection as we know it today, that is why he could say, “As a cloud vanishes and is gone,  so one who goes down to the grave does not return (7:9)”. But we know one, Jesus, who went to the grave and returned back the third day and paved the way for all of us who believe in him to return back one day.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:27)

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 29 Job 9 & 10  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

³² “He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
 that we might confront each other in court.
³³ If only there were someone to mediate between us,
 someone to bring us together,
³⁴ someone to remove God’s rod from me,
 so that his terror would frighten me no more.
³⁵ Then I would speak up without fear of him,
 but as it now stands with me, I cannot. (Job 9:32-35)

Job was a really good man, as good as a human can be, but the Bible tells us, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)”, including Job. That’s why he needed “someone to mediate between him and God, someone to bring him and God together (v9:34).” But when it comes to us, the search is over; Jesus is that mediator as we read in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 30 Job 11 & 12  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

 “To God belong wisdom and power;
 counsel and understanding are his." (Job 12:13)

Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 1 Job 13, 14 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

A person’s days are determined;
 you have decreed the number of his months
 and have set limits he cannot exceed.
⁶ So look away from him and let him alone,
 till he has put in his time like a hired laborer. (Job 14:5-6)

Faced with the certainty of death for all men, Moses prayed in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Why wisdom? Wisdom keeps people from dying young, before their allotted time, though no one can go on living after their allotted time. “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (14:5).

May the Lord richly bless you

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 1 Job 13, 14 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

A person’s days are determined;
 you have decreed the number of his months
 and have set limits he cannot exceed.
⁶ So look away from him and let him alone,
 till he has put in his time like a hired laborer. (Job 14:5-6)

Faced with the certainty of death for humanity, Moses prayed in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Why wisdom? Wisdom keeps people from dying young, before their allotted time, though no one can go on living after their allotted time. “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (14:5).

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 2 Job 15, 16 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁷ Surely, God, you have worn me out;
 you have devastated my entire household.
⁸ You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness;
 my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
⁹ God assails me and tears me in his anger
 and gnashes his teeth at me;
 my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes. (Job 16:7-9)

Was Job right to blame God as he did here? As we mentioned before, one must keep in mind both the prologue and the epilogue of the Book of Job to understand what is going on in the story. In Job 42:7 we read “⁷ After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” Job has spoken the truth.

Consider this conversation between Jesus and Pilate in John 19. ¹⁰ “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”¹¹ Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 3 Job 17, 18  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

His roots dry up below
 and his branches wither above.
¹⁷ The memory of him perishes from the earth;
 he has no name in the land.
¹⁸ He is driven from light into the realm of darkness
 and is banished from the world.
¹⁹ He has no offspring or descendants among his people,
 no survivor where once he lived.
²⁰ People of the west are appalled at his fate;
 those of the east are seized with horror.
²¹ Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man;
 such is the place of one who does not know God.” (Job 18:16-21)

With friends like these who needs enemies? There are still modern versions of these types of friends. By example, they blame people who do not get healed when they pray for them as lacking of faith. They claim that if you are not rich is because you don’t plant enough seeds in their ministries. They judge without knowing the whole story. Be careful!

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 4 Job 19, 20  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

²⁵ I know that my redeemerlives,
 and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed,
 yetin my flesh I will see God;
²⁷ I myself will see him
 with my own eyes—I, and not another.
 How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27)

Job, in the verses above (19:25-27), stated some amazing truths about the resurrection. The question is, how did he knew about such truths? They came to him by revelation. God’s word was sustaining Job in his moment of trials. It will also sustain us in our moment of temptation, the Bible declares, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it ”(1 Corinthians 10:13)”.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 5 Job 21, 22  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

“Is it for your piety that he rebukes you
 and brings charges against you?
⁵ Is not your wickedness great?
 Are not your sins endless?
⁶ You demanded security from your relatives for no reason;
 you stripped people of their clothing, leaving them naked.
⁷ You gave no water to the weary
 and you withheld food from the hungry,
⁸ though you were a powerful man, owning land—
 an honored man, living on it.
⁹ And you sent widows away empty-handed
 and broke the strength of the fatherless.
¹⁰ That is why snares are all around you,
 why sudden peril terrifies you,
¹¹ why it is so dark you cannot see,
 and why a flood of water covers you. (Job 22:4-11)

Job’s friends wanted him to make a false confession of guilt. And, since Job refused to condemn himself, they accused him of sins that he never committed. At the end of the Book, we will see that the Lord was very angry with those misguided friends. It is a warning for all of us to restrain ourselves from judging other believers while they are going through some trials. People rarely know the full story behind a testing situation.

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 8 Job 23, 24  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

“Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment?
 Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?
² There are those who move boundary stones;
 they pasture flocks they have stolen.
³ They drive away the orphan’s donkey
 and take the widow’s ox in pledge. (Job 24:1-3)

Any person who has live passed a certain age can add to the list of injustices mentioned by Job. Nowadays, injustices are not only committed by individuals but also by corporations led by heartless people. They say that corporations are people. They would even try to destroy God’s creation and his people for profits. The Bible tells us that there will be a day of reckon. Only a sincere repentance will set the wicked free from the wrath of God.

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 9 Job 25, 26  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

² “Dominion and fear are with God;^[a]
 he makes peace in his high heaven.
³ Is there any number to his armies?
 Upon whom does his light not arise?
⁴ How then can man be in the right before God?
 How can he who is born of woman be pure?
⁵ Behold, even the moon is not bright,
 and the stars are not pure in his eyes;
⁶ how much less man, who is a maggot,
 and the son of man, who is a worm!”  (Job 25)

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 10 Job 27, 28  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

² “As God lives, who has taken away my right,
 and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
³ as long as my breath is in me,
 and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
⁴ my lips will not speak falsehood,
 and my tongue will not utter deceit.
⁵ Far be it from me to say that you are right;
 till I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
⁶ I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go;
 my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.  (Job 27:1-6)

Job shows us the value of the discipline of honesty, speaking the truth when a lie would work better. Truth confronts the sin of hypocrisy, it demands a lot of courage to live a consistent life. Truth is necessary for real healing, the healing that touched in the deep recess of our psyche. True love requires truth.

May the Lord richly bless you!

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Book of Job Challenge – Day 11 Job 29, 30  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

1 Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me,
12 because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them.
13 The one who was dying blessed me; I made the widow’s heart sing.
14 I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban.
15 I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.
16 I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger.
17 I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth. (Job 29:11-17)

James 1:27 says that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” We are not saved by our good deeds, but we do the good deeds because we are saved. “ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 12 Job 31, 32  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

So these three men stopped answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2 But Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. 3 He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him. 4 Now Elihu had waited before speaking to Job because they were older than he. 5 But when he saw that the three men had nothing more to say, his anger was aroused. (Job 31:1-5)

We are looking at the debate between Job and his friends calmly because we know both the beginning and the end of the story. But we need to remember that it was different for them. They just did not know. As one of the top American politicians said a few years ago: As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

What must we do? The best approach is humility.  

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 13 Job 33, 34  (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

¹⁴ For God does speak—now one way, now another—
 though no one perceives it.
¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night,
 when deep sleep falls on people
 as they slumber in their beds,
¹⁶ he may speak in their ears
 and terrify them with warnings,
¹⁷ to turn them from wrongdoing
 and keep them from pride,
¹⁸ to preserve them from the pit,
 their lives from perishing by the sword. (Job 33:14-18)

Some people say that God doesn’t speak nowadays. But a lot of times experience trumps theory.

One Sunday afternoon, after that I’ve encountered some difficulties at church in the morning, I went to Walmart with one of my daughters to buy something. I stayed in the car feeling down and somewhat confused about what I should do about the situation at church. Out of nowhere a Latino man knocked on my window, I rolled the window down. He just said to me Psalms 32:4, his accent was so thick that I did not get what he was saying the first time. He repeated, “Psalm 32:8.” By the time I pulled my Bible to read the passage, the man was gone, never to be seen again.

Here is Psalm 32:4, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.”

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 14 Job 35, 36 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁸ And if they are bound in chains
 and caught in the cords of affliction,
⁹ then he declares to them their work
 and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.
¹⁰ He opens their ears to instruction
 and commands that they return from iniquity.
¹¹ If they listen and serve him,
 they complete their days in prosperity,
 and their years in pleasantness.
¹² But if they do not listen, they perish by the sword
 and die without knowledge. (Job 36:8-12)

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 15 Job 37, 38 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
 Tell me, if you understand.
⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
 Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶ On what were its footings set,
 or who laid its cornerstone—
⁷ while the morning stars sang together
 and all the angels shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

May the Lord richly bless you!

Hello:

Book of Job Challenge – Day 16 Job 39, 40 (Please click on the blue links to be directed to the Readings)

Moreover the Lord answered Job and said: ² “Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it.” ³ Then Job answered the Lord and said:⁴ “Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.⁵ Once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:1-5)

The best way to deal with difficult life situations is to adopt an attitude of humility.  The why questions will not help us, only a complete trust in God’s holiness and love will get us over all the bad things that can happen in this life. God declares to mankind in Isaiah 58:8-9, “⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Le zeprev yo vini nou mande pouki?
Nou bezwen soufri ke atriste
Poutan lezot yo ki antoure nou
Ape rejwi yo menm nan peche

Pi devan na we jezi nan glwa li
Pi devan nape konprann pouki
Bon kouraj fre mwen fe ke ou kontan
Paske yon jou na konprann pouki

Souvan nou mande pouki nou bezwen
Pase nan wout saa poun swiv jezi
Pandan lezot yo yo ap viv byen alez
Nap bat poun cheche lezam pedi

Pi devan na we jezi nan glwa li
Pi devan nape konprann pouki
Bon kouraj fre mwen fe ke ou kontan
Paske yon jou na konprann pouki

May the Lord richly bless you!