Today’s devotion comes form Job 33:1-18.
“However now, Job, please hear my speech,
And listen to all my words.
2 “Behold now, I open my mouth,
My tongue in my mouth speaks.
3 “My words are from the uprightness of my heart,
And my lips speak knowledge sincerely.
4 “The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
5 “Refute me if you can;
Array yourselves before me, take your stand.
6 “Behold, I belong to God like you;
I too have been formed out of the clay.
7 “Behold, no fear of me should terrify you,
Nor should my pressure weigh heavily on you.
8 “Surely you have spoken in my hearing,
And I have heard the sound of your words:
9 ‘I am pure, without transgression;
I am innocent and there is no guilt in me.
10 ‘Behold, He invents pretexts against me;
He counts me as His enemy.
11 ‘He puts my feet in the stocks;
He watches all my paths.’
12 “Behold, let me tell you, you are not right in this,
For God is greater than man.
13 “Why do you complain against Him
That He does not give an account of all His doings?
14 “Indeed God speaks once,
Or twice, yet no one notices it.
15 “In a dream, a vision of the night,
When sound sleep falls on men,
While they slumber in their beds,
16 Then He opens the ears of men,
And seals their instruction,
17 That He may turn man aside from his conduct,
And keep man from pride;
18 He keeps back his soul from the pit,
And his life from passing over into Sheol.” Job 33:1-18.
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Although Elihu made false accusations or false inferences against Job in verses 9 to 13, especially in verse 12, that in summary Job was maintaining that God was not greater than man, there is profit in meditating on the greatness of God that Elihu describes in the highlighted verses 15 to 18.
God does even help His people, even in their sleep.
“Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman keeps awake in vain.
2 It is vain for you to rise up early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” Psalm 127:1-2.
While His beloved slept, the LORD delivered Israel from the Egyptians.
“For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.” Exodus 12:23.
How many times did God break deadly sickness in His beloved who would most certainly have died if not for God healing them while they slept!
“22 The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23.
Even in Gethsemane, during the time that he described as “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death” and asked his disciples “remain here and keep watch”, Jesus could have passed on the suffering and death for His people, but instead He concluded while His disciples slept: “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” See Mark 14:32-42.
Furthermore, death is sometimes lightly described as sleep. Even when His people were dead in their transgressions, “God made them alive together with Christ”.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:4-9.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 