Category: Sunday School

Forgiveness, Gospel, Salvation, Sunday School, Types and Shadows

Joe & Moe: Delivery Boys ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 2-2-14

Michelle Lesley

sunday schoolThese are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week.Click here for last week’s lesson.

 Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 5 ~ Jan. 26- Feb. 1
Genesis 41 – Exodus 9
Joe (Joseph) & Moe (Moses): Delivery Boys (Part 1)

 

→         ┼     ←→    II
Old Testament                     Gospels         Acts-Revelation    (Christ’s Return)

All of the Old Testament points to Christ. Throughout the OT, we see Israel, a people in need of deliverance, and throughout the OT, we see God use men as types and shadows of Christ, each pointing out a facet of the way He would deliver His people from their bondage to sin.

Let’s look back at some of the people we’ve studied so far and how they are types of (symbolize) Christ. Look at these people through the lenses of Jesus’ life.

Adam– One Man (Romans 5:17)
As sin entered the world through the first/only begotten son, so salvation entered the world through God’s only begotten Son.

Abel– Death of the innocent (Hebrews 12:22-24)
We see the good, obedient, innocent shepherd, betrayed by his brother and killed for no crime of his own.

Noah– The only righteous man (Genesis 6:9, 1 Peter 3:18)
We see salvation take place through the only righteous man on earth, scorned by sinners. We see the death of sin, the burial (at sea), and the resurrection to new life.

Job– The Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:3,10)
In Job, we see Christ, the innocent, misunderstood and accused by those who should have been His friends, suffering, not for His own sin, but for God’s greater plan: that God might be glorified.

Abraham– The Obedient Son (Philippians 2:5-8)
Abraham left the comfort and position of his homeland in exchange for a life of sojourning in a land not his home. He was obedient to God whatever the cost to himself. So, Christ emptied Himself of His position and comfort in Heaven to sojourn on earth and live in obedience to God, whatever the cost.

Isaac– The Promised Son (Genesis 3:15) and The Lamb of God (Genesis 22:8,14, John 1:29)
God told Abraham He would send him a son, and after many years, the promise came true. The son of the Abrahamic Covenant was born in a miraculous way. In Genesis, God promised to send His Son, and after many years, and many reminders of God’s promise to Israel, the Son of the new covenant was born in a miraculous way.

Lamb of God- He was the only acceptable sacrifice. He took the wood for the sacrifice upon his back and walked up the hill to his place of death. “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” That mountain, Mt. Moriah, turned out many years later to be Calvary. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jacob– Cornerstone (Matthew 19:28)
Jacob through his twelve sons/tribes, was the foundation of God’s people, Israel. Jesus, delegating through His twelve disciples, is the foundation of God’s people, the church.

Joseph– Deliverance Through Forgiveness (Genesis 50:20, Acts 5:31) (Genesis 45:5,7-8; 50:15-21, Luke 23:33-34, 1 John 1:5-9)
Joseph was a deliverer, as was Christ. His life shows us one aspect of Christ’s delivering us from our sin: forgiveness. I did a study on this a while back and wrote a blog article about it. It’s like one of those optical illusion pictures where if you look at it one way, it’s an old, ugly woman, but if you look at it another way, it’s a young, pretty woman. This is a “story optical illusion.” See if you can see Joseph and Jesus at the same time.

QueretaroCrossShadow1In the Shadow of the Son

And after all this: hating him, taking him away from his family and all he knew, selling him as a slave, working his way up only to lose everything again when he was falsely accused of rape and imprisoned for years for a crime he didn’t commit, forgotten by the cupbearer for two years, unsure how his brothers were treating Benjamin or his father, not even knowing if his father was still alive, Joseph forgave his brothers and gave them a new start, a new life.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, foram I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Genesis 50:15-21

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.
Luke 23:33-34

As Jacob forgave his brothers and Christ forgave his executioners, this is exactly what Christ does for us. We repent, and He forgives us for our sin. He gives us a new life.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:5-9

The story of Joseph is a beautiful story of a man rejected, betrayed, and done away with, only to live again victoriously, and forgive and save his betrayers. Just like Jesus.

Apologetics, Marriage, Sunday School, Tough Passages

Tackling Tough Issues: Marriage Between Close Relatives in Genesis ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 1-26-14

Michelle Lesley

sunday schoolThese are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 4 ~ Jan. 19-25
Genesis 22-40
Tackling Tough Issues: Marriage Between Close Relatives in Genesis

Last week’s reading- containing the story of Abraham’s marriage to his half-sister, Sarah -brought up the question of why God permitted close relatives to marry in some situations in the book of  Genesis. As we trek through the Bible this year, we will address some of these issues in an apologetic sub-series, “Tackling Tough Issues.”

NOTE: Incest, as we define it today, is a horrific crime. It is never OK with God (or with me) for one person to victimize another in this way. If anything in this lesson seems to indicate otherwise to you, either I have not written clearly enough or you have misunderstood something. If you need clarification, please comment below with your question.

Part of this lesson is taken from the article Why Did God Allow Incest In the Bible? by GotQuestions.org (an awesome resource for questions about the Bible, which I highly recommend). Quotes from the article are in black. My notes are in blue.

Question: “Why did God allow incest in the Bible?”

GotQuestions.org Answers: There are numerous examples of incest in the Bible. The most commonly thought-of examples are the sons/daughters of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4), Abraham marrying his half-sister Sarah (Genesis 20:12), Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19), Moses’ father Amram who married his aunt Jochebed (Exodus 6:20), and David’s son Amnon with his half-sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13). It is important to note, however, that in two of the above instances (Tamar and Lot) one of the parties involved was an unwilling participant in the incest.

1. When labeling something in the Bible with a current-day word such as “incest,” we must take a look at what we mean by the word, and whether or not the author of the passage of Scripture and the characters in the passage would agree with our characterization of their actions by the use of our current-day words. Today, the word “incest” in our society carries some of the following connotations:

1. Incest is a crime. It is against the law.
2. Incest is considered to be disgusting and morally reprehensible by most of society.
3. Incest is usually predatory, non-consensual rape, and the victim is usually a child. (A parent or older sibling/close relative molesting a child.) It is devastating and damaging to the victim.
4. Even incest between consenting adults is looked upon with disgust (and is illegal). These relationships are nearly always hidden. They are not brought out into the light and legitimized by any normal segment of society or by legal marriage.

This way of thinking, and thus the word “incest,” the way we define it, does not apply to most of the situations listed in the paragraph above. 

2. There are some big differences among the instances cited in the paragraph above. The children of Adam and Eve and the marriages of Abraham/Sarah and Amram/Jochebed were marriages by consent, nowhere condemned by God, which took place before the Law was given. In the case of Adam and Eve’s children, there was no other choice for procreation and populating the earth.

In Biblical times, the marriage of Amram and Jochebed was not, and, indeed, today is not, in many parts of the world, considered incest. (It is genetically the same {25% of genetic material shared} as first cousin marriage, (which is legal in 23 states and Washington, D.C.) and is currently legal in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Malaysia, and Russia.)  In fact, because of the inheritance laws for the Promised Land, people, especially women, generally married someone from their own tribe, to keep their land from being transferred to another tribe and losing their tribe’s inheritance of land (Numbers 36). Someone from one’s own tribe was, by definition, a relative. To the Israelites at that time, aunt/nephew was just a closer relationship than some others would have been. (Please do not misunderstand me. I am not personally advocating or in favor of avunculate or first cousin marriage.)

The incidents with Lot and his daughters and Amnon/Tamar were not marriages and were also non-consensual rape. God did not “allow” (in the sense of giving His approval) this as suggested by the title of the article. In fact, Amnon was murdered by his own brother for raping his sister (2 Samuel 13). Furthermore, the Amnon/Tamar incident occurred long after the Law was given, so Amnon was guilty of breaking the law. Lot’s daughters’ offspring became the Moabites and the Ammonites who later became enemies of Israel.

3. We must remember that any sexuality (lust or sexual acts) that takes place outside the parameters of a marriage between one man and one woman is a sin. (Genesis 2:24, Exodus 20:14) Therefore, if there is no legal marriage in place, any sexual relationship is automatically a sin regardless of the familial relationship between the participants.

4. To my knowledge, we do not see any instances of biological father-daughter or mother-son marriage in the Bible. (Even a step-son/step-mother relationship is condemned in 1 Corinthians 5:1.) The closest biological relationships we know of are brother-sister between Adam and Eve’s children. It is within the realm of possibility that only one such marriage occurred and that after this, marriages were between more distant relatives such as aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

5. Considering that some people lived for many centuries prior to the time of Noah (Genesis 6:3) and that there was often a considerable age difference between husbands and wives, even a marriage between two of Adam and Eve’s children may not have been as emotionally and socially “close” (though still biologically close) as we would think of sibling marriage today. Today, siblings are generally close in age, live under the same roof, and grow up together. We can only speculate, but it is possible that the son(s) of Adam and Eve was grown and out of the house before the sister(s), whom he eventually married, was even born.

6. In the case of Abraham, the dispersion of people across the face of the earth after the flood and after the Tower of Babel may have played a part in his choice of his half sister as a wife. People were spreading out, not every family produces daughters, and Sarah may have been the only woman of marriageable age available at the time Abraham needed to marry. Additionally, at that time, when wealthy men had more than one wife (as Abraham’s father did), the wives often had their own tents/houses, separate from one another, and the children lived with their mothers. So, it is likely that, though living near one another, Sarah and Abraham did not grow up under the same roof.

It is important to distinguish between incestuous relationships prior to God commanding against them (Leviticus 18:6-18), and incest that occurred after God’s commands had been revealed. Until God commanded against it, it was not incest. It was just marrying a close relative. It is undeniable that God allowed incest in the early centuries of humanity.

The article just said it wasn’t “incest” until God commanded against it, so a better wording of that last sentence would be: “It is undeniable that God allowed marriage between close relatives in the early centuries of humanity.” God has never “allowed” (in the sense of “approving of”) incest the way we define it today.

If Adam and Eve were indeed the only two human beings God created, their sons and daughters would have had no other choice but to marry and reproduce with their siblings and close relatives. The second generation would have had to marry their cousins, just as after the flood the grandchildren of Noah would have had to intermarry amongst their cousins. The reason incest is so strongly discouraged in the world today is the understanding that reproduction between closely related individuals has a much higher risk of causing genetic abnormalities. In the early days of humanity, though, this was not a risk due to the fact that the human genetic code was relatively free of defects.

It seems, then, that by the time of Moses, the human genetic code had become polluted enough that close intermarriage was no longer safe. So, God commanded against sexual relations with siblings, half-siblings, parents, and aunts/uncles. It was not until many centuries later that humanity discovered the genetic reason that incest is unsafe and unwise. While the idea of incest is disgusting and abhorrent to us today, as it should be, we have to remember why it is sinful, that is, the genetic problems.

Actually, the reason it is sinful is because it is a perversion of, and rebellion against, God’s law (that’s the reason that anything labeled a “sin” is sinful). Genetics may be part of the reason God laid down the prohibition in the first place, but genetic abnormalities in and of themselves are not the reason it is a sin. Sin is sin because it is a breaking of God’s law.

I am not convinced that genetic problems are God’s entire reason for prohibiting marriage between close relatives. One of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason, maybe, but I think there are additional reasons. Otherwise, why, in the case of the step-mother/step-son relationship (where genetics was not an issue, since these two people were biologically unrelated) in 1 Corinthians 5 does Paul react with such disgust and call it, “sexual immorality… and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife… Ought you not rather to mourn?” (v. 1-2) They didn’t even know the science behind genetic abnormalities back then. Also, medical problems do not generally cause this kind of gut-level disgust. That is normally reserved for moral issues.

I believe (and this is a personal opinion, not a statement of biblical truth) that by the time God gave the Levitical laws, the sinful condition of man had degenerated to the point that relationships between close relatives had not only become dangerous genetically, they had also become harmful emotionally, socially, and familially. We have only to look to people we know who are victims of incest to see the devastation that is caused when people break God’s law against incest.

Perhaps, like Job’s friends, we only have one or two pieces of the puzzle, and God is the only one who knows ALL of His reasons behind making marriages between close relatives a sin.

Since this was not an issue in the early centuries of humanity, what occurred between Adam and Eve’s children, Abraham and Sarah, and Amram and Jochebed, should not be viewed as incest. Again, the key point is that sexual relations between close relatives must be viewed differently pre-Law and post-Law. It did not become “incest” until God commanded against it.
© Copyright 2002-2014 Got Questions Ministries.

When we face difficult biblical issues like this one, it’s important to go back to what we were talking about last week and remember God’s sovereignty. He is all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent), and everything is under His control.

God is perfect and always does what is right:
The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.
Deuteronomy 32:4

When we don’t understand God’s ways, it’s not that God is wrong, it’s that (like Job’s friends) we don’t have complete understanding and knowledge of the situation.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
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

When we don’t understand something, we are to trust God about it, knowing that He does all things well.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5

And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. 
Mark 7:37a

Additional Resource:
Cain’s Wife: Who Was She? by Answers In Genesis

Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, Sunday School

Ishmael and El Roi ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 1-19-14

Michelle Lesley

sunday school

These are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 3 ~ Jan. 12-18
Job 32-42, Genesis 12-21
Ishmael and El Roi

What does “Ishmael” (Genesis 16:11) mean? El Roi (16:13)? Ishmael means “God hears.” El Roi means “the God who sees me.” Today, we’re looking at God’s sovereignty as displayed in the passages we read this week.

What do we mean when we say God is “sovereign”? Omnipotent? Omniscient? “Sovereignty” the way we use the word in the church today, means that God has authority and control over all things, people, and circumstances. He is omnipotent (all powerful) and omniscient (all knowing). Nothing in the universe happens without His knowledge, causation, or permission. We’ll see how God defines His sovereignty towards the end of today’s lesson. Because God is sovereign, we can TRUST Him.

Elihu (Job 32-34, Focal Passage- 33:29-30): God’s knowledge is perfect and complete. Ours is not. Elihu (as well as Job’s other three friends) thought he had God’s reasons for Job’s suffering all figured out: God brings suffering in order to lead men to repentance. Since Job was still suffering, he must still be in unrepentant sin. Elihu (and the others) were partly right. Sometimes, that is why God allows us to suffer. But not in Job’s situation. Each of them had a small piece of the puzzle, but none of them had the whole picture. Job wisely trusted God, who was the only one in this situation who knew the whole story, instead of his friends’ counsel.

42:7-9– Because our knowledge is incomplete, we must be extremely careful what we say about, or on behalf of, God. (Acts 20:26-27; Revelation 22:18-19, 2 Timothy 2:15) We are not to go farther than Scripture, nor stop short of declaring the full counsel of God. We are not to add to nor take away from God’s word. We are to handle God’s word rightly. We are to believe what God’s word says in context. Otherwise, we risk slandering the character of God.

Abram (Genesis 12-21): God isn’t just sovereign over the “big” things. He’s sovereign over the “small” things, too. He can be trusted in all things.

Abram trusted God’s sovereignty in the “big” things (Genesis 12:1-4; 15:1ff; 17:1-14)… Abram trusted God in a lot of “big” things. When God came to him and told him to leave his comfortable home and surroundings for a life of being a nomad, and didn’t even tell him where he was going, Abram went without question. When God told Abram He would give him innumerable descendants even though Sarai was barren, and that He would give Canaan to those descendants hundreds of years later, “he believed the Lord, and [God] counted it to him as righteousness.” (15:6) When God introduced the idea of circumcision to this 99 year old man, Abram didn’t try to talk God out of it or suggest a different way, he trusted God and obeyed.

…but sometimes he had trouble trusting God’s sovereignty in the “small” things (Genesis 12:11-13, 20:1-3; 16:1-2, 17:15-21; So did Lot’s daughters- 19:1ff; Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6) Abram trusted God when He rearranged and relocated his entire life. He trusted God to give him a myriad of descendants when he didn’t even have one child. He trusted that God would give thousands of square miles of land to his greatgreatgreatgreatgreat… grandchildren, yet when it came to protecting him and his wife, Abram gave in to fear and lied not once, but twice, about Sarai being his wife. Then, instead of trusting the God who had made all these great promises to him to cause Sarai to conceive on His timetable, he and Sarai took matters into their own hands with Hagar and violated God’s plan for marriage. Abram “listened to the voice of Sarai,” not the voice of God. (Just because bearing children “through” a handmaid was culturally acceptable at the time and Scripture doesn’t record God’s verbal disapproval of it doesn’t mean it was OK with Him.)

We see the same thing later with Lot’s daughters. Instead of trusting the God who sovereignly protected them from gang rape and the destruction of Sodom to give them husbands and children (or that it was OK with God for them to remain single and childless), they took matters into their own hands in a vile way. It is never God’s will for us to violate God’s word in order to bring about what we think are His purposes.

Hagar (Genesis 16:1ff, 21:8-21): God is sovereign over all circumstances, even the bad ones. His sovereignty brings comfort and shows He is trustworthy. Hagar was a slave. No one asked her if she wanted to sleep with Abram or bear his child. She had no choice. She was a victim of Sarai’s and Abram’s disobedience. But see how tender God is with her in these two passages! God comforts her personally and shows her she can trust Him by telling her a little about how He is going to use her circumstances in the future, and by His provision of the well. She can trust Him because He is sovereign over her situation. He has heard her cry (Ishmael) and is the God who sees her (El Roi).

Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 13:13, 18:22-19:29; Ezekiel 18:23; 2 Peter 3:9): God is gracious and patient, yet sovereign over sin, and sovereign in judgment. We learn as far back as chapter 13 that “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord,” yet it isn’t until chapter 18 that we learn of God’s imminent plan to destroy the cities. We can’t be sure of the precise timing, but we do learn in chapter 12 (right before chapter 13 when God states that the men of Sodom were wicked) that Abram is 75 years old, and we find in chapter 17 (right before chapter 18 when Abram intercedes for Sodom) that Abraham is 99 years old. If the events are in chronological order, it appears (not knowing how long they had been “wicked” before chapter 13) that God mercifully spared his judgment against Sodom for at least 24 years. We see in other places, such as with Egypt (Exodus 12:40-41) and in our own day (since Christ’s ascension) that God waited hundreds or thousands of years before bringing judgment.

God is kind, gracious, and patient, because of His sovereignty over sin and judgment. He knows the kind of judgment that’s required and what it will be like. Over and over He provides ways for people and nations to repent, escape the penalty for their sin, and turn to Him. But when the time of His patience is fulfilled, He faithfully and righteously executes judgment.

God says, “ Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” and “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” He has provided a way for us to escape judgment- placing our faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection to pay the penalty for our sin.

What does God have to say about His sovereignty? (Job 38-42; Focal Passages: 40:1-2,7-14; 42:1-6)

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Or who shut in the sea with doors?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you establish their rule on the earth?
Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
    or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
Do you give the horse his might?

Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

“Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?
Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with a voice like his?

“Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity;
clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
and look on everyone who is proud and abase him.
Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low
and tread down the wicked where they stand.
Hide them all in the dust together;
bind their faces in the world below.
Then will I also acknowledge to you
that your own right hand can save you.

Then Job answered the Lord and said:

“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”

Discernment, False Teachers, Sanctification, Suffering, Sunday School

When Bad Things Happen to Blameless People ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 1-12-14

Michelle Lesley

sunday school

These are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 2 ~ Jan. 5-11
Job 6-31
When Bad Things Happen to Blameless People

One of Job’s main stances in this section is that he is “blameless” in God’s eyes. What does it mean to be blameless? (Job 6:24, Psalm 15:2, 18:23, 19:13) It carries the connotation that no one can accuse this person before the Lord of current, willful, unrepentant sin. A blameless person is one who loves the Lord, desires to please Him, and has a track record of good fruit- he avoids sin, repents of sin and asks forgiveness from those he has wronged, and does good works.

What does “blameless” NOT mean? (Romans 3:10, 23, Psalm 51:5) Blameless doesn’t mean perfect or without sin. We are all sinners from conception.

Why Job is suffering? (1:8, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10) We know that it’s BECAUSE Job is blameless that he’s suffering (1:8- Compare to Paul in 2 Cor.), but Job and his friends don’t know this. Job doesn’t understand why he’s suffering, but his friends think they do.

Why do Job’s friends think he is suffering? Job’s friends start from the false assumption/conventional wisdom that suffering is always a direct result and punishment of sin, and that blessings are always a direct result of good/godly behavior. Notice, they all come from the same line of thinking, but bring up slightly different points to Job.

Bildad (8:5-6, 18:5, John 16:33, Matthew 6:9-13): “You just need to ‘get right with God’.” Bildad says Job needs to repent of his sin. If Job would just “get right with God” everything would be fine. Jesus says to his disciples: In this world you WILL have tribulation.

Bildad is partially right. We can suffer for sins we’ve committed. If you have an affair, you will probably suffer the loss of your marriage. If you don’t, you won’t. If we are walking in constant repentance (as in the example of the Lord’s Prayer) and communion with the Lord, our consciences are sensitive to sin, we’re more alert to temptation, strengthened to avoid it, and more likely to be, as Job was, blameless.

Job responds (9:2-3, 14-15; 12:9): “Nobody is sinless, but I am walking blamelessly.” Nobody can stand sinless before God. Job is as right as he knows how to be. He can’t think of any sin in his life he hasn’t repented for, and he has a track record of walking with the Lord. God knows all of that , and still, He is the one who is allowing all this calamity, so what Bildad is saying can’t be true.

Zophar (11:4-6; 20:29): “These calamities are proof that there is sin in your life.” Zophar takes the attitude that the calamities themselves are proof that Job not only has sin in his life, he is lying to cover up that sin by saying he’s blameless. Therefore, Job deserves even worse than what he’s getting.

Job responds (13:15; 27:1ff, John 6:66-69): “I don’t know why God is doing this, but I’m not going to give up hope in Him.” Job will not abandon his hope in the Lord. Even though he doesn’t understand God’s ways right now, he knows he’s right with the Lord. Besides, there’s no hope in anything else. Compare to Peter’s confession of Christ.

Eliphaz (15:20, 2 Timothy 3:12, John 15:18, Jeremiah 12:1): “Only evildoers suffer. Godly people prosper.” What does Jesus say about that? “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?”

Job responds (21:7,16; 2 Corinthians 11:24-28): “Our own daily experience tells us that’s not true.” We all know, or know of, people who live very godly lives, yet suffer with illness, deaths of loved ones, financial ruin, family problems, and evil people who have everything they could dream of. Compare to Paul.

If this were true, what would motivate people to come to Christ? (1:9-11) Greed. Selfishness. A “What can I get from God?” mentality. This is exactly what many popular “Christians” teach today. Come to Jesus for healing. Come to Jesus for wealth. Come to Jesus for success. Never, “Come to Jesus for His tender mercy and the forgiveness of your sin.” Come to Jesus for stuff. That’s what they teach, and that’s what Satan assumed Job was serving God for (1:9-11). God showed through Job that that’s not why His true children serve Him.

Jesus (Matthew 5:45, Job 29-31, Romans 8:28): “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” This is exactly what Job is saying in chapters 29-31. He has walked blamelessly all these years and had good circumstances. Now, he’s still walking blamelessly and he has bad circumstances. He hasn’t changed. His goodness didn’t earn God’s blessings as payment, and his badness (remember, he wasn’t perfect and still sinned during the “good years”) didn’t disqualify him from them. Only his circumstances have changed.

All things, bad or good, come through God’s hands, and they come because He loves us. Romans 8:28 says “for those who love God all things work together for good.” All things- the good and the bad. The good things may be for comfort, joy, provision, testing our faithfulness or obedience, to allow us to help others, etc. The bad things may be for some Heavenly reason (as with Job) that we know nothing about, to draw us away from the things of the world, to teach us obedience or dependence on Christ, to allow us to know Him as Provider, Healer, Comforter, Peace. We can’t know Him experientially in those ways if we never walk through times when we need provision, healing, comfort, peace, etc.

As parents, sometimes we give our child ice cream to eat and sometimes we give him Brussels sprouts. Do we give ice cream because we love him and Brussels sprouts because we hate him? No. Both are done out of love, the ice cream because it brings him joy, and the Brussels sprouts because it has the nutrients he needs to be strong and healthy. It would not be loving for a parent to give only ice cream OR only Brussels sprouts. In the same way, it would not be loving for God to give us only blessings or only difficult times.

Let’s ask God to help us walk with Him blamelessly so we can say, as Job did (23:10-12):

But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
My foot has held fast to his steps;
I have kept his way and have not turned aside.
I have not departed from the commandment of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.

Sanctification, Sin, Sunday School

Obedience: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Babel vs. Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Job ~ Sunday School Lesson ~ 1-5-14

Michelle Lesley

sunday school

These are my notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.

This week, we started a new study. We will be reading through the entire Bible in 2014 using “Back to the Bible’s” chronological reading plan (reading Biblical events in the order in which they actually happened). Each Sunday’s lesson will cover a story(s)/event(s) contained in the previous week’s (Sun. – Sat.) reading.

Through the Bible in 2014 ~ Week 1 ~ Jan. 1-4
Genesis 1-11, Job 1-5
Obedience: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Babel vs. Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Job


What is obedience? (Deuteronomy 15:5) Obedience is simply doing what God commands. Bringing our lives/behavior/hearts in line with what God tells us to do.

Why are we to obey God? (John 14:15, 21, 23-24, 1 John 5:3) We do NOT obey God’s commands in order to get to Heaven or to balance out our sin. Our obedience shows that we are already saved because it springs from the love and gratitude in our hearts to Christ for saving us from our sin.

What can we learn about disobedience from…

Adam & Eve:
Flee from, don’t flirt with, temptation. (Genesis 3:1-5) Eve didn’t flee temptation, she stood around, had a conversation with it, and let it convince her.

Your disobedience doesn’t just affect you. (Genesis 3:6-24) Eve’s sin caused Adam to sin, which caused the whole world to sin for every successive generation. Your sin can have far reaching effects.

Cain:
Sin snowballs. (Genesis 4:1-16) First Cain disobeyed God’s parameters (not stated in Genesis) for offerings. The root sin of this was rejection of God’s authority. God didn’t have the right to tell Cain what to do, he’d do it his own way.

This led to anger (not grief, shame, or repentance at his disobedience—anger) at God for rejecting his offering. His anger was rooted in the sin of mischaracterizing God as unfair or wrong. Anger led to murder, then murder led to lying to God to cover it up.

God graciously warns us about disobedience. (Genesis 4:7) He’s such a good God, that just as He warned Cain of the consequences of disobedience, and that he needed to avoid temptation, God gives us a Bible full of examples of the dire consequences of disobedience, culminating in the death of Christ to pay the penalty for sin.

Babel:
We must obey God even if it’s hard, we don’t want to, or it doesn’t make sense to us. (Genesis 9:1,7; 11:1-9) After the flood, God told Noah’s family to spread out and fill the earth. 11:4- They wanted the exact opposite. They were supposed to bring glory to God’s name, but they wanted glory for themselves.

God is sovereign and will have His way despite our disobedience. (Genesis 11:8-9) Nothing, including our disobedience takes God by surprise or thwarts His plans.

What can we learn about obedience from…

Abel:
Obedience isn’t always a grand gesture. Obedience in the “small” things is just as important to God. (Genesis 4:1-16) If it weren’t for Cain’s disobedience, we probably wouldn’t know about Abel’s obedience. How many times that weren’t recorded had he obediently offered a sacrifice? Abel’s obedience is the true hero of this story, yet he’s little more than a bit player. He simply and quietly obeys God, and God “has regard” for his offering.

Faith in Christ and love for Him are what motivate obedience that is pleasing to God. (Hebrews 11:4) Not fear of punishment, not grudging legalism.

Enoch:
Obedience is to be a day by day, continual practice. (Genesis 5:22-24) “I’ll obey when I feel like it, when it’s convenient, etc.,” is totally foreign to God’s definition of obedience. In some stories we see special “big” acts of obedience, but in Enoch’s life we see a steady, daily walk with God. That is the type of story most Christians will live out.

God rewards obedience. (Genesis 5:24, Hebrews 11:5) Possibly materially, definitely spiritually.

Noah:
God requires our obedience even if everyone around us disobeys. (Genesis 6:5-8) Noah (and his family) was the only one on EARTH obeying God. Had he chosen a life of rebellion like the others, he would have died like the others.

The world will often respond negatively to our obedience. (Genesis 6:5, John 15:18) “…every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That’s not a heart that loves and embraces the things of God. John 15:18: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me [Jesus] before it hated you.” Just as the world hates God, so, when we display His truths in our lives, they will also hate us.

Job:
Obedience and faithfulness does not guarantee health, wealth, or smooth sailing. (Job 1:8-19) Job was the most blameless and upright guy on earth, according to God, and for God’s own purposes, not to punish Job for disobedience, He took away all the good things in his life.

We obey God even in the most difficult circumstances (Job 1:20-22) Even in times of extreme difficulty, we worship, we obey, we don’t charge God with wrong. Because God doesn’t owe us material goodies or positive circumstances as payment we earn with our obedience, neither can we “quit our job” of being obedient when tough times come. God may be trying to bless us with something even more valuable: knowing Him more closely, feeling His comfort, maturing, leading someone to Christ, taking us home to Heaven, etc.

We are only servants, called to obey a kind and loving Master (Luke 17:7-10; Matthew 25:23)