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Tag: job

Job is first of the books of wisdom in the Bible and thought to be the oldest text included in the Bible.

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 3

    The Fall before the Fall

    … so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.

    Hebrews 9:28 HCSB

    In ‘Disaster From Disobedience 2’  we considered the ‘In the beginning’ creation narrative. Genesis continues with the creation of man. We know that the fall of mankind and our expulsion from Eden will follow, but consider first an earlier significant event, the fall of angels.

    The Fall Of The Rebel Angels Painting by Gustave Dore
    Luke 10:

    … “Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name.”

    18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a lightning flash.

    19 Look, I have given you the authority … over all the power of the enemy; nothing will ever harm you. 20 However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

    Christ Jesus instructs followers of what only the Son of Man from before creation can know. Angels disobeyed God, Creator and Master of all He Created.

    Yet witness here Christ’s authority over fallen angels. Demons submit to God by the Apostle.s command in Christ’s authoritative Name.

    Angels – Other Beings who Serve

    Angels were created also to serve God. When? We can’t be certain, but we do know that it was prior to the fall of man. And like us, they were also given freedom for obedience. 

    I suppose it is possible that angels and man were created at the same time, since Adam and Eve may have lived many years in Eden until the fall. Yet the presence of the serpent in Eden would seem to indicate an earlier creation of angels.

    Like mankind, some angels rebelled against the purpose for which the Lord God created them. God created angels as several, specific types of spirit-creatures. Angels are not the spirits of those who have died, but were created as beings in heaven. And like the creatures of earth, not all angels are alike. 

    Picture angels as many individual and diverse spirit-beings just as the creatures of this Earth vary.  Visualize their lives in a real and existing, unseen dimension, separate of this visible place.

    Unlike the Lord, no spirit rules over the day or fills flesh with the power of life! Angels are messengers for good or for evil, depending on who they serve.

    The Fallen Star 

    Satan is just one of the disobedient angels of darkness, posing falsely as hope for mankind.

    Returning briefly to a time after the fall of Jerusalem, the Prophet Isaiah had predicted Israel’s return after seventy years of captivity. Isaiah also interestingly described hell and the fall of Satan.

    Isaiah 14:

    12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
    O Lucifer, son of the morning!
    How you are cut down to the ground,
    You who weakened the nations!
    13 For you have said in your heart:
    ‘I will ascend into heaven,
    I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…
    14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
    I will be like the Most High.’
    15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
    To the lowest depths of the Pit…

    Disaster is not punishment for sin, but consequence of the fall.

    Job chronicles several conversations between the Lord and Satan. Here Satan comes before the Lord asking for permission to inflict evil upon Job, even though God sites Job as blameless. The common scene is Satan as prosecutor, accusing and condemning the criminal to death for some sin; even tempting man to turn again God and follow his own demise into eternal punishment.

    Job 1

    6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

    “From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

    Beware of the tempter

    Beware of what you cannot see, for Satan roams the earth for the prize of sinners tempted into disobedience against God.

    Satan rules unseen spirits and principalities of darkness. Whether original sin, where the tempter is mentioned as the serpent or in Isaiah, where Lucifer appears as false light, Satan seeks disobedient sinners.

    Even now that prince of devils opposes righteous men and women who seek to serve God and Christ faithfully.

    8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”

    9 Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

    The entire saga of Job begs the question from his wife, his friends and the reader, “Why would God allow this to happen to ‘a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil?’” 

    The Lord even permits Job to question the intentions of the Almighty! However the LORD answers Job and the readers at length.

    HE IS THE LORD! … and man is not. 

    Nor is Satan, or angels; kings or idols. God IS God and we are not. Yet we would do well to remember the tempter’s appeal to our own desires, even as in Eden and since the inherited evil of ‘adam.

    Angels who serve God

    Much more is written of angels serving the fallen prince of the darkness and angels who remain messengers and worshipers of the Lord God.

    Though our series addresses our disobedience, let’s close with a brief description by a Prophet of spirits near to the Living God. And like other descriptions of heaven, our mortal minds can barely take-in the immense glory of the scene.

    Ezekiel 1

    4 I looked, and there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber. 5 The likeness of four living creatures came from it, and this was their appearance:

    They looked something like a human, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the hooves of a calf, sparkling like the gleam of polished bronze. 8 They had human hands under their wings on their four sides. All four of them had faces and wings. 9 Their wings were touching. The creatures did not turn as they moved; each one went straight ahead.

    10 Their faces looked something like the face of a human, and each of the four had the face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left, and the face of an eagle. 11 That is what their faces were like. 

    Their wings were spread upward; each had two wings touching that of another and two wings covering its body. 12 Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went without turning as they moved…

    Throne of the LORD

    lapis lazuli

    25 A voice came from above the expanse over their heads; when they stopped, they lowered their wings. 26 Something like a throne with the appearance of lapis lazuli was above the expanse over their heads.

    On the throne, high above, was someone who looked like a human…

    Read on if you like, or read other descriptions of the awe of the Lord and of the heavenly servants which include angels. 

    Man is fallen and sin has consequence. Next, we will return to the fall of man.

    To be continued…

     

  • Time Beyond Years – Omega

    Revelation 1:8 KJV

    I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

    ἄλφα - Alpha first letter of Greek alphabet - Christ is the Alpha to indicate that he is the beginning and the end
    Alpha

    Briefly, we considered creation (day 1 before measurable time). 

    Look at the timeline of man’s history as if the mark on the left is creation. Suppose man (adam) is a second mark and Noah a third. Then Abraham and Moses followed by David, with generations and centuries unmarked.

    In the middle of the line a notable mark of the division of time follows which we note as B.C. (or BCE) and A.D. (from the Latin: Anno Domini – ‘In the year of our Lord’).

    Before this dividing mark of time between BC and AD, David has reigned and the Prophets have spoken.

    THEN..

    Jesus Christ is born, teaches, crucified and resurrected (a challenge to mortal time). 

    His life as God With Us (Immanuel) delineates a beginning to these last days.

    Our timeline of these last days endures through persecution of the faithful while the Lord wins repentant sinners.

    But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:9

    Following the fall of Rome and rise of false prophets the church witnesses the way of Christ Jesus.

    History records the printing of the Bible, reformation of the faith and enlightenment of mindful godlessness.

    The nations learn of Christ, empires rise and fall toward an inevitable end, the omega of time. Christ IS near in the omega of these last days, the end of time measured by the created of the Lord God Almighty.

     Ω Ō, o’-meg-ah; the last letter of the Greek alphabet, i.e. (figuratively) the finality:—Omega.

    Observe any line, even a timeline of history.  

    It has a beginning (Α, ἄλφα) and it has an end (Ω, Omega). 

    Yet look beyond the visible beginning and visible end of the line and in your mind’s eye observe the infinite extension of that which is visible. 

    Look above (heavenward) and below: consider the expanse of so much which the line does not touch.

    apokalypsis the Gospel of Jesus Christ unsealed
    — Omega revealing the end

    Our created living souls can barely grasp it!

    The refracted light of our postmodern enlightenment clouds the clarity of the One true Light.

    Time and creation have cause. The Lord will surely accomplish His purpose and the saving of His own at the end.

    Before the Α, After the Ω

    And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

    Genesis 1:31

    One commandment from God to man, a simple life in paradise:

    “.. of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – Genesis 2:17b

    Yet man chooses trespass to just one simple command from God. A just and righteous LORD must punish sin.

    The Lord God said.. to Adam he said: “.. for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3 excerpt

    Living toward life’s end

    LATER in Scripture - from a conversation of a righteous man.
    Although Job appears later in the Bible his place in the timeline of history is closer to Abraham than to David.
    Job 7:

    “Has not man a hard service on earth…? 

    … so I am allotted months of emptiness,
    and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

    When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

    But the night is long,
    and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

    5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
    my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
    6 My days are swifter.. and come to their end without hope.

    7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
    my eye will never again see good.
    8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
    while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

    17 What is man, that you make so much of him,
        and that you set your heart on him,
    18 visit him every morning
        and test him every moment?

    Why do you not pardon my transgression
    and take away my iniquity?
    For now I shall lie in the earth;
    you will seek me, but I shall not be.” – Job 7:21 

    The time and place of punishment

    Luke 16:

    … and in Hades, being in torment… And he called out, ‘… have mercy on me.., for I am in anguish in this flame.’

    ᾅδης – hadēs

    • What do you expect of inevitable death and deserved hell? 
    • (Or do you yet claim blemished goodness with eyes that will not see death?)

    Hell [Hades] holds captive many living souls by the certainty of our own sins.

    Roman, Hellenist and Hebrew understanding of Jesus’ mention of Hades fits the definition:

    1. name Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions
    2. Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead
    3. later use of this word: the grave, death, hell

    Yet note a subtlety of the root word of Hades: 

    From the negative participle of Alpha and εἴδω – eidō, a word meaning ‘to see’ or ‘to know.’

    And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. – Revelation 20:1

    Do you yet see our vulnerability to the punishment for sin after our end without Christ?

    “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house. – Ezekiel 12:2

    After the Omega, saved in Christ

    The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.. – 1 Timothy 1:15

    The gospel εὐαγγέλιον of John:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…

    But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…

    “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

    .. and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

    “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ)...

    Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

    If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

    Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

    And this is the judgment:

    the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

    Omega – for those with eyes to see

    apokalypsis the Gospel of Jesus Christ unsealed
    Omega revealing the end
    Revelation 22:

    Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…

    “And behold, I am coming soon. 

    12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

    “Come.”

    And let the one who hears say, “Come.”

    And let the one who is thirsty come;

    let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

    20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

    Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

    21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

    Amen.

  • About Roger, a 21st c. Christian Author

    I first wrote for myself

    Roger Harned, born in Ohio in the USA. I grew up in a small village listening to many stories of family and others every day. I grew up listening to good preaching as well.

    I’m a storyteller, some may say an author. I read and write out of my love for understanding the hearts of others, more specifically the Lord. My writing career had been a private pastime which included lyrics, poems and scribbled ramblings on the youthful musings or love.

    Did I mention my first love was music? As a teacher listening to music entering the hearts of others, I arranged what I hoped would be heard. Yet mostly, it was not. A conductor dreams of becoming a maestro and leader of the genius of others. A woman once called me ‘maestro’ after hearing me conduct the Cortland Community Band in a 30th anniversary concert. One fan, for whom I am thankful. Even so I did compose many songs which never had an audience. Great music, silent for all time.

    Now I orchestrate words for others lead by the Creator of all readers. I pray that the Lord brings hearers of the word to my exposition of scripture.

    We listen to a lyrical love of a Savior who loves us sacrificially. Once born again in the Spirit of the Living God, my writing flowed from the Word, Christ Jesus.

    Since that time twenty some years ago, the Bible speaks volumes to a silenced soul with prophetic conviction I sometimes tremble to share.

    The written of the LORD humbles my flesh and refines my soul.

    A Perfect Author draws new readers to His Love

    Any preacher could tell you (in private) that expository preaching is nothing less than revealing an unfolding story of a Perfect Author. No man in the pulpit or arena is up to it. The Author of Scripture IS the LORD, who reveals to mortals by the Spirit what must be written and proclaimed.

    Only One Son of Man, God Incarnate, taught perfect Law and unerring prophesy to the elect and adopted of the LORD.

    John 1:1-4

    I’m not the Author, only a messenger

    Readers here will not be particularly interested in what I have to say, but what the Lord has to say. I try not to say too much, as is the reaction of Prophets before Almighty God. Isaiah 6:5 

    Links provided here from my personal research direct the reader to scripture or trusted scriptural authority from more studied teachers of the faith. Again, any faithful writer about God will direct you to the Lord’s story and not our own imperfect application. I pray that the Lord draws you to explore further the great richness of scripture behind these links.

    Let the Spirit speak to the depths of your soul from scripture.

    “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

    2Timothy 3:16-17

    My author blog

    Roger Harned - Author blogThe Lord led me to this place because a publisher convinced me that authors need followers. To that end I also promote my posts on other social media such as FaceBook, Pinterest and Twitter. Therefore your follows are most appreciated.

    In addition to excerpts from my book and writings, may posts explore scripture in brief posts directed to our 21st c. attention spans. Therefore many posts from my series will conclude with the well-known cliff-hanger: “To be continued…”

    I’ve never relished the challenge of painting a fancy resume. Let the Lord and others witness my contributions in exposition, prophesy and witness.  And may Christ Jesus speak through me and my writing always glorify the Lord.

    I love scripture, first and each time I study a passage of the Bible the Lord reveals more of His story. I credit many favorite authors and some dedicated instructors of writing and theology for my love of words and writing skills. Anything you may glean from the more than five hundred posts on talkofJesus.com is a gift from the Lord. Yet many more-gifted authors before me greatly influence my appetite for context and application.

    I rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit for direction of my ‘talk’ of Christ Jesus in this place. I pray you will share the Lord, that by your social witness talkofJesus.com will impact the heart of another in some way.

    Roger’s Personal Post Script

    P.S. On a personal note, I was married for more than twenty-two years to a beautiful soul who was raised Catholic. She suffered cancer and died in her fiftieth year. As a result, our only daughter and I grew into a deeper faith in Christ.

    I was raised in the Methodist church and have been active in lay ministry and teaching in several denominations. The Holy Spirit brought me to my knees before the cross, a story told also on my searchable website.

    I’m a sinner, redeemed in Christ, an unwelcome ambassador in this decaying world. Therefore I live here as one longing for God’s love in an eternal world of light and joy. Here I have also suffered divorce, survived cancer and found a place and purpose in my work and in the heart of my wife.

    The goal of Christian Social Witness is to SHARE the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    And as for my book and my work, I leave you only with today’s hope for tomorrow’s joy. Please remember me in your prayers and pray that the Lord will continue that good work of this 21st c. Christian.

    I pray, if it is the Lord’s will, your eternal soul and mine, through the love and grace of Christ Jesus are:

    To be continued…