You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
Job 30:2-4
2 Yea, whereto [mah] might the
strength [koach] of their hands [yad] profit me, in whom old age [kelach] was perished ['abad]?
3 For want [checer] and famine [kaphan] they were solitary [galmuwd];
fleeing [`araq] into the wilderness [tsiyah] in former time ['emesh]
desolate [show'] and waste [mashow'ah].
4 Who cut up [qataph] mallows [malluwach] by the bushes [siyach], and
juniper [rethem] roots [sheresh] for their meat [lechem]. KJV-Interlinear
2 'Indeed, what good was the
strength of their hands to me? Vigor had
perished from them. 3 'From want and
famine they are gaunt Who gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation,
4 Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And
whose food is the root of the broom shrub. NASB
Arrogance was the original sin of Lucifer, who is now
known as Satan or the devil. From
arrogance, all other sins are born into the life of the individual. Among them is stubbornness, the glue of
arrogance, which keeps people confined within the boundaries, or prison, of
sin.
On the opposite side of the coin, is humility. Humility is the unassuming or un-stubborn
attitude of the individual, which allows the person to see other options and
make other choices in life. Humility
allows the individual to get out of the prison of arrogance.
There is a side of life where people will stick to
their bad decisions no matter what. They
do not have to be poor, or even wealthy
for that matter. Arrogance and
stubbornness translate into inflexibility in their opinions and that translates
into the making of bad decisions in life.
Usually decisions are made spontaneously, or in a knee jerk fashion, and
when people have made their decision, their stubbornness makes up the prison
bars that keep them in their circumstances, even when it is obvious that their
situation is not a good one.
They won't think things through and they refuse to do
the reasonable things to make their life better.
And so these are the individuals which Job is
describing.
These are folks who choose to not work. They are poor because of their own refusal to,
not work.
Instead of going to work and making something of their
life, they choose to go into the desert, live in rags, and eat from bushes and
roots.
The mallow referred to here is a large bush, which
grows in regions that do not receive much water, if any. Their leaves and branches are extremely sour
and would be considered by normal folks, something that would be eaten as a
very, very, very last resort.
So, this description is of people who refuse to listen
to reason. They prefer life in a desert
setting, driven their, not by other folks, but driven by their own negative and
rigid attitude. The desert has little
water, if any. The desert has little
opportunity to offer life, if any. No
person in their right mind would prefer life in the desert over life in a more
prosperous setting.
The prosperous setting requires work, responsibility
and so forth. Something that the
spiritually negative person refuses to do.
This is the perfect description of the spiritually
negative person. No matter how
benevolent Job has tried to be with those who were destitute, there were those
who rejected his help. And, in fact,
they hated Job because of his offers, and cheered when Job fell on hard times
himself.
Spiritually negative people treat God, Christ,
doctrine, and their spiritual life in the same fashion. They reject doctrine, they reject the
principles of doctrine, they pick and choose the principles they will or will
not abide by in life.
They presume wisdom, when they are void of knowledge. And they are stubborn, and trapped in their
stubbornness by a prison of their own construction.
Their attitude, which they believe to be wisdom in
their own mind, gets them poverty or a life in the spiritual desert of life. Their life is bitter and sour, because that
is how they think. The food of their
bitterness is of their own choosing.
And the very odd thing about all of this is, that
their relief is only a thought or an attitude adjustment away. Change for the better cannot be much simpler. But stubbornness creates a huge barrier to
change.
The vigor of life comes from making good decisions in
life. Bible doctrine is the good
decision, which produces vigor in the spiritual life. A more vigorous strength than the physical
life can produce.
Throw away your vigor and you have no strength. Having no strength, you are no good to
yourself, much less anyone else.
Now is the time to post a prayer.
End Of Lesson
Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth.
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