Job

— Read and listen to the Bible being read at the same time; also, A. R. Wells, 1908, shares a (self-application) “tiny meditation” on each chapter. (some modifications have been made.)

Job with his “friends” – a portrait by Guy Rowe

.
Click for a brief easy English summary of the book of Job.

Suggestions:
1) Read the “tiny meditation” before and/or after you read the Bible chapter to help make a self-appllication of the scriptures read.
2) Want to use both your eye gate and ear gate in taking in the Word? Just click the “Read” chapter to get started.

.

Click to Read Job 1—My Testing Time

How shall it be known that I really love God? That I serve Him because I love Him, and not for what I get from Him? How, unless I cease to get anything from Him? How, except He try me with bitter trials? And if I truly love Him, how welcome those opportunities of proof will be to me!

Job Told of His Losses

Read Job 2—My Steadfastness

That was a great answer of Job’s, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” I trust God in times of brightness; shall I not trust Him when the darkness comes? Is my guide only for the levels, my pilot only for the calms?

Read Job 3—My Despair

When, like Job, I would curse the day of my birth, and wish that I had never come to see the light, let me consider how very willingly, in spite of all my troubles, I continue to see the light. By my very continuance in life I prove the value of the gift; and the existence that I affect to despise I would be the last to render up to the Giver.

Job’s affliction

Read Job 4—My Temerity

Whenever I find fault with the ordering of the universe, let me bethink myself with Whom I am finding fault. Shall I be wiser than my Creator? Shall I be more just than the Founder of Justice?

Read Job 5—My Correction

Why can I not train myself to see things as they are? Why is it so hard for me to rejoice in the chastenings that the Lord sends upon me? And yet I am well assured that no number of what the world would call blessings, though they crowded an hundred palaces, would afford me the joy in eternity that will spring from the least of God’s correctings.

Read Job 6—My Friendships

There are many disappointments upon earth, but none more severe than to be disappointed in one’s friends. Yet one must be prepared even for that. We are to put no trust in friends, save the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Read Job 7—My Weariness

It is well that the sorrows of life should come heavily upon us, so that we cry out in sharp anguish, “I would not live always!” This is our weaning from earth. This is our separation to heaven. This is our assurance that the next world is endlessly fairer than this, since a loving God is at such stern pains to tear us from this world.

Read Job 8—My Hope

Yes, though my mouth as yet is filled with moans, it shall be filled with laughter. Yes, though my lips are still trembling with the burden of my grief, they are to open wide and strong with hallelujahs. A blessed time is coming, and not even my tears shall be allowed to wash away the thought of it.

Read Job 9—My Righteousness

How can a man be just with God? However righteous I may seem, my own mouth shall condemn me, and my every act shall rise up against me. I cannot plead my own cause, so ashamed am I. O Christ, my Daysman, Thou wilt stand between me and my Judge, whom I have so deeply offended!

Read Job 10—My Judge

Why indeed should God be so strict to mark iniquity? Is it by way of persecution? Ah, not but by way of reformation. A wise father will not neglect the smallest fault of his child. It is not because he dislikes the child, but because he loves him so deeply.

Read Job 11—My Debate

Do I dare to parley with the Almighty? Am I so presumptuous as to pass judgment upon my Judge? How can I know Him who sits at the center of the universe, and His hands reach to its circumference? What debate can I have with Him whose intelligence holds all things of space and time?

Read Job 12—My Ruler

What man can be blind to God? What lie is so bold as to disregard Him? Where shall one hide from His eyes, and the outreach of His hands? Oh, the unutterable folly of those that forget God, or scorn Him! They are like mariners that mock at the ocean, or birds that will deny the air.

Read Job 13—My Defiance

Sometimes I dare to challenge God. I venture to deny His righteousness, and complain of what I call His injustice. I do not deserve this sorrow, I say. “Prove that I deserve it!” I bid the All-wise. And God in mercy does not strike me down, but He leaves me to myself. And I am not left long with myself before I own His justice. Ah, when I know myself, I begin to know my God!

Read Job 14—My Immortality

“If a man die, shall he live again?” Ah, Job! Hadst thou the flood of happy light upon that question which I see, springing from the tomb of the risen Christ! Am I half as grateful for it as I should be? Do I begin to realize the darkness of those Easterless days?

Read Job 15—My Meditation

Let me study to know myself. Let me not trust in vanity, deceiving myself. Let me not “diminish meditation before God.” A hasty man is confident of his own uprightness, but a thoughtful man knows his sin.

Read Job 16—My Comforter

Truly, there is poor comfort in man! How little do even my best friends know of my inward griefs, the battles of my soul! How poorly do they understand me, who so poorly understand themselves! But I have another one, a Comforter indeed. He knows me utterly, He sympathizes with me perfectly, He is nearer to me than I am to myself!

Read Job 17—My Purity

Surely, “He that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.” I have seen that proved in the lives of many; God grant me the proof of it in my own soul! God help me to the victorious purity that is as the strength of ten!

Read Job 18—My Wickedness.

I have seen it in the world, I have seen it also in myself, that sin has no rest, no safety, no peace. There is no cover that can hide it, no fire that can warm it, no hand that can comfort it. Before it the earth is a desert. Above it the heavens are iron. Oh, the endless folly of the man that seeks after sin!

Read Job 19—My Consolation

Let the root of the matter be in me also, as in Job. Let me also be sure that my Redeemer liveth. Let me also be certain of His coming, at the last. After whatever sorrows and pains, after whatever disappointments and postponements, after failures and shames, and the darkness of death, my Redeemer, my Redeemer, oh, my Redeemer!

Read Job 20—My Failures

No failure of mine is decreed by Jehovah; nothing but the most entire success. But how I thwart the good purposes of my God! How when He plans fullness I devise emptiness, when He would execute triumphs I contrive defeats! Let me never accuse my God; let me see in my own heart the fountain of all my woes.

Read Job 21—My Perplexity

What if Jehovah does allow the wicked to flourish? Shall I therefore doubt His wisdom? Is it for more than a few years? Is the life of a man more than the passing of a cloud? The thoughts of God are long thoughts. Let me not judge the Most High along the line of human years.

Read Job 22—My Friend

Among all my acquaintances, my familiars, the persons and things of my closest thought, is there room for the Maker of all things and persons? Am I truly acquainted with God? Or is my worship words, and my prayer a pretence, and my Bible a pile of printed sheets? Oh, let my religion be real!

See How Lofty the Stars, Job 22:12

Read Job 23—My Consolation

When men, even my friends, misjudge me, I have one sure comfort, that God does not misjudge me. When my way seems dark, I have one unfailing cheer, that “he knoweth the way that I take.” When trials are heavy upon me, this thought always lightens them: “When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Read Job 24—My Security

Not for a moment am I secure to evil. Though I seem walled around with all protections, God’s least breath will blow down that wall. There is no safety but in God, to me or any man.

Read Job 25—My Righteousness

Shall I be just before God? Why, in the presence of His purity my whiteness is as midnight. In front of His light my lamp is as coal. By the side of His goodness my best deeds are as a shame and a disgrace. Shall I vaunt myself, and not rather hide my head in fear and dishonor?

Read Job 26—My Glimpses of God

Lo, I see but the outskirts of His ways. With every advance in the knowledge of God I perceive how little I knew of Him before. So will it be forever. Lord, I thank Thee that I can see Thee. Lord, I thank Thee that I can see so little of Thee! I would not have a God whom I could know altogether.

Read Job 27—My Insistence

How I persist in justifying myself, like Job! How I insist that, though God’s ways may be right, at any rate I know that mine are! How little I know of that humility which sees in every affliction only my just desert, and in every blessing an unmerited benefaction! How poorly, even after all these years, do I know myself!

Read Job 28—My Wisdom

I find myself seeking wisdom in all ways but the right way, and from all sources but the right source. It is not in nature. It is not in books. It is not in teachers. It is not in myself. It is not in history or experience. God, who made all these, is the only fountain of the wisdom of them all. When I seek wisdom elsewhere, I do not wisely.

Read Job 29—My Past

Alas for me, if my eyes turn longingly to the months of old, if any days seem better to me than these days in which I am living now! God has not grown worse. The world has not grown worse. If my fortune is worse, whatever the outward husk of things may appear, it is because I am worse. There is no other way of worsening my fortune.

Read Job 30—My Despair

When it seems as if all the world was against me, let me not for an instant forget that Thou art not against me, that Thou canst never be against me. Over the howling of the wolves let me hear Thy whisper of love, and even in the mocking of my adversaries let me listen for the word of Thy comfort, O my God!

Read Job 31—My Morsel

Though it be only a morsel of comfort and happiness that I have, let me not eat my morsel alone! What is want to me would be abundance to many. When sorrow comes upon me, grant me the consolation of others’ joy which I have brought about. So shall I find an alleviation of my woes.

Read Job 32—My Confidence

To me also God has given a message. It may not be a great message, but it is mine. It may be far inferior to what others have said, but they have not said it. And since God has given it to me to say, it is as important for me to say it as for Paul to utter his resplendent discourses, or Dante to write his Inferno.

Read Job 33—My Redemption

What cannot be wrought in me by reproaches, may be instantly be wrought by love. What the thunders of Sinai cannot do, is done in my hard heart by a whisper from the cross of my Redeemer. He has redeemed my soul from the pit. And now I know that my soul was in the pit.

Read Job 34—My Rebellion

I must not condemn in Job what I may find in myself. Do…I also boast my own righteousness? Do…I also rebel against God’s decrees? Do… I also set up my judgment against His?

Read Job 35—My Words

Let me not “multiply words without knowledge.” Let me think before I speak. Especially, let me think before I speak about God. If for every idle word I shall give account in the last day, how much more when the idle words are directed against my Maker!

Who Teaches Us Like Birds?, Job 35:11

Read Job 36—My Affliction

It is not only that God will deliver me in my affliction. He will also, as was said to Job, “deliver the afflicted by his affliction.” My sins and sorrows shall become stepping-stones to higher things. I shall be cured by the poison that brought me low. God will make my wrath to praise Him.

Read Job 37—My Tempest

There is no tempest, however terrible, in which I may not see the hand of my Father. Though the storm uproot trees and overturn houses, yet it is His hand. Though the lightning destroy life, yet every bolt proceeds from the hand of my Father. And if I hold His hand, I shall be safe in any storm.

Read Job 38—My Provision

There is much in the natural world that I do not understand, but enough that I do understand to convince me of the goodness of God. There is the thunder-cloud, but there is also the sunshine. There is the howling wolf, but there is also the raven provided with food, “when his young ones cry unto God.”

Read Job 39—My Outlook

The beautiful world is a university, ever open to open eyes. How many lessons are daily presented to me, lessons that I do not learn! Every field is full of parables, and every hill is a Sermon on the Mount! Enlighten my eyes, that I may see, O Thou God of nature.

Read Job 40—My Silence

God speaks from the whirlwind
Have I spoken, when God was speaking? Or have I laid my hand upon my mouth, and proved myself listening-wise? With what loud and preposterous words have I clamored up to heaven, and how seldom have I harkened to the great orations of the sky!

Read Job 41—My Leviathans

Has the progress of my science made leviathan seem a small thing? Has the familiar universe grown commonplace? Are the primal curiosity and freshness worn off from my soul? Alas for me, when God’s leviathans are only flies on my horizon!

Read Job 42—My Repentance

When I bow the head of my pride, when I know the sin of my heart, when I am willing that all men should know it, when I see how little I know, how little I can do, and see also how much God knows, how much God can do, and when I escape from the captivity of my pride and passion into love for my friends,–then, ah! Then God can bless me.

Job’s Fortunes are Restored, Job 42:10-17