Daily Dose of Hope

March 11, 2025

Day 3 of Week 50

Scripture: Job 1-3; Psalm 29; Revelation 10

Welcome back, everyone, to the Daily Dose of Hope. This is the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Church Bible reading plan.

Today we are starting the book of Job. This is a book of suffering. We get to see that right away. It’s an unusual book too. The author says that it takes place in the land of Uz, which is far away from Israel and Job is not an Israelite. It’s probable that the author intentionally doesn’t give a lot of historical detail because that isn’t the point. The point is more the questions that are raised by Job’s suffering.

Chapters 1 and 2 are the prologue of Job. We learn about Job, who is upright and blameless. He has been blessed immensely but he has stayed humble with the highest of integrity. From there, we are transported to the heavens where God is meeting with his angels and someone referred to as Satan, which means accuser. When this accuser tells God that Job is only upright and blameless because God has blessed him with all kinds of good things, then God gives Satan the ability to take that away from Job, to test him essentially, and see if he will stay committed to God.

Of course, to most of us, this is incredibly frustrating. Why does God do this? It doesn’t make sense. And we might think that maybe the book will answer the question of why. But, spoiler alert, it doesn’t. It does ask more questions about God’s justice which we will be forced to reckon with. The accuser arranges for Job to experience the loss of his children, the loss of his fortune, and then to be covered in boils. Essentially, everything good is stripped from him. But he doesn’t curse God.

He has three friends who come over to try to comfort him but I don’t think they were much comfort at all. But these friends do represent the typical way of thinking about suffering at the time in that part of the world.

Chapter 3 brings us into the main part of the book, which includes a lot of prose and poetry. Job speaks first and as we move into the other chapters, we will hear the responses of the three friends. Chapter 3 is exclusively Job, who is lamenting the day he was born. Why did God even allow him to live? We will delve more into this tomorrow.

Our New Testament text is Revelation 10. In this chapter, John sees another angel come down from the heavens. This angel is wrapped in a cloud. Keep in mind, that clouds often refer to God’s judgment. There is also a rainbow above the head of the angel. Rainbows often refer to God’s covenant. So, we might gather that God’s judgment is coming in regard to God’s covenant with his people.

But there is also this piece about the little scroll that the angel is carrying. John is told to come get the scroll and eat it. Eating the scroll is a symbol of being ready to prophesy God’s message. Remember that when Ezekiel eats his scroll he finds it to be sweet as honey in his mouth. The Word of God is described as sweet in multiple places in Scripture. Psalm 19:9-10 reads, ...the decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. Notice that when John eats the scroll, he also finds it as sweet as honey. However, after he had eaten it, his stomach was made bitter. The bitterness comes because of the judgments that are still to come. More tomorrow...

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki