READING FOR MARCH 28, 2024: JOB 28, ROMANS 11, PSALM 24:7-10 JOB 28 Job was quite knowledgeable about mining for minerals and precious metals. He even understood the smelting process. Perhaps this could give scholars some sense of when the book of Job was written. His main point, though, is that it takes lots of effort to dig a mining shaft and then that shaft is hidden in darkness from unknowing men and animals on the surface. One can imagine the great effort this took before modern excavating equipment existed. Even today mining is dangerous and difficult.
Then he compares this with how much more difficult and more important it is to mine for wisdom. In verses 15-19, he talks about wisdom using the same comparison that the Psalmist uses in God’s word: “Therefore, I love Your commandments above gold, yes, above pure gold.” (Psalm 119:127). A sad but true observation he makes is that humans don’t often understand wisdom's value. We seem to be far more interested in the pleasures that material riches can bring or spending time being entertained.
Job goes so far as to say wisdom can’t be found in this world or, as he says, “in the land of the living.” Later he asks, “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is this place of understanding” (Job 28:20-21)? This might suggest that Job did not have access to any written revelation from God. The manner in which he ends this chapter by referring to both the created universe and moral absolutes indicates his main source of godly wisdom may have been from creation (Rom. 1:18-20) and from his conscious (Rom. 2:14-15).
God, however, did speak on occasion directly with Job. We know that from the end of the book and also from this earlier reference: “I have not failed the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23: 12). Job concludes chapter 28 by reaffirming it is the fear of the Lord that brings wisdom, a statement confirmed repeatedly throughout scripture. Do we want wisdom? FEAR GOD BY OBEYING THE BIBLE.
ROMANS 11 Paul says flat out that God has not rejected the Jews. This is a clear refutation of Replacement Theology. It might appear that Jews have totally rejected God, just as Elijah mistakenly believed he was the only faithful Jew left in his day. God disabused Elijah of that error: “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Rom. 11:4). Paul states that, like then, God had a remnant of Jesus-believing Jews in his time. He himself is a prime example. Yes, there are many Jews who have rejected Jesus and have thus received a spirit of stupor. As we discussed about Jesus and his use of parables and with the Pharoah in Romans 9, those who have first hardened their own hearts through rejection of the truth will be further hardened. There is this consequence for rejecting truth.
The good news is this rejection by the Jews has enabled space for Gentile to hear the Gospel and respond in faith. We see how this worked out practically in Paul’s outreach to the Jews in
READING FOR MARCH 28, 2024 CONTINUED: ROMANS 11, PSALM 24:7-10 Corinth: “Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood is on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles’” (Acts 18:5-6). Paul goes on to say that, although this stumble by the Jews has opened the gates for the Gentiles, it does not mean the Jews as a people will never have an opportunity for salvation. He looks at this like a bank shot in basketball. The fact that Gentiles are now entering the kingdom through faith will eventually make the Jews “jealous,” which will in time lead them to do likewise.
Paul uses the analogy of the olive tree. Jews were the tree’s branches, but these branches were broken off due to their initial rejection of Jesus. This enabled space for Gentiles to be grafted into the tree. However, because the Jews are naturally olive branches they can be reattached as a people. This will happen (Rom. 11:26)! Also, should any Gentile Christians reject Jesus, as some have recently done, they will be removed from the tree and lose their salvation. How will individual Jews be grafted into the tree, by God’s grace through their placing faith in Jesus. For the most part, this has not happened, yet. When will this happen in greater numbers? From the prophecy in Isaiah 59:20 Paul quotes, it appears it will happen when Jesus comes to turn Jacob (Israel) to God, in other words at the second coming of Jesus.
Does this boggle the mind? That means we’re starting to get it right: “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways” (Rom. 11:33).
PSALM 24:7-10
In these three verses the expression “King of Glory” is used five times. Who is this King of Glory? Three times the answer given is the Lord, also identified as a mighty warrior. Who is this warrior King and Lord? Revelation reveals that He is the Lamb who was sacrificed for our sins: “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He isLord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful” (Rev. 17:14).
That is the Gospel. Victory through death. The forces of evil and sin are finally defeated by Jesus who was given to pay the price for our sins. All those who receive Him by faith as their Savior and Lord are promised to be with Him in Glory as the called, chosen, and faithful ones.
