Job 20

"So my thoughts give me a rejoinder, by dint of my inner sense."

Tonstad points out that Job's three friends each represent a different foundation or source of justification. 

Eliphaz:Special Revelation (Job 4:12-16)

Bildad:Tradition (Job 8:8)

Zophar: Reason (Job 20:2-3)

October 23, 2016

“Sinners love the taste of sin, they relish every bite and swallow it slowly.”  (Job 20:12-13 CEV)

Job is being really graphic here in this sentence.  When he says these words and I imagine what it would look like to relish in sin in this way, of course I am going to think of sex. 

               

What I did find strange though, is that these days I do not really see sin as something to be enjoyed, but something that is blinding to the truer and wholesome joy that something should bring.  So when I  read this and got a picture in my head of someone actually enjoying sin, I thought it was peculiar that they could actually be happy for at least that one moment, regardless of what the “food will turn [to] in their stomachs” (verse 14), they actually seem to be happy for this short moment. 

So yes it was strange because I thought of being in sin as this state of senselessness where you really can’t enjoy anything, in the end this is what indulgence is all about.  The thing that we indulge in is death and senselessness, we relish in ignorance; because we do not want to feel accused, we ignore the accusations.  Indulgence, the deeper it goes, the more you die, the less you feel and understand, the more you want, the more you hurt, the more you die to be satiated;  “But their food will turn sour and poison their stomachs… and never enjoy rivers flowing with milk and honey.” (Job 20:14+17 CEV)

Verse 17; the rivers flowing with milk and honey is utter satisfaction… without the need for indulgence for one to feel nurtured.  But above feeling nourished one will feel free to roam from the crib; you will not need to carry that oxygen tank around anymore, because oxygen will permeate the atmosphere.  Rather than having that syrup hose latched onto your face, indulgence will come to you and you will breathe it in without you being bound, without it enslaving you.

-(9/24/11)