Day 239: Straight Up

Welcome to Day 239 of the Bible 365 Podcast! I'm so excited you are joining me on this journey through the entire Bible this year. Reminder that each episode in 2026 will have a brand new devotional.

Today we'll be reading through Job 23-27; 2 Corinthians 1:12-24, 2:1-11; Psalm 41; and Proverbs 22:5-6. Invite a family member or friend to join you as we grow in our knowledge of God through His Word.

I'm so glad that you are here!

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Transcript

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Welcome to day 239 of the Bible 365 podcast. My name is Randy Goudo, and today we're going to be reading through Job chapters 23 through 27, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 12 through 24, and chapter 2, verses 1 through 11, Psalm chapter 41, and Proverbs chapter 22 verses 5 and 6. The translation I'm using throughout this podcast is the Berean Standard Bible, also known as the BSB. Let's read. Job chapter 23. Then Job answered, Even today my complaint is bitter, his hand is heavy despite my groaning. If only I knew where to find him, so that I could go to his seat. I would plead my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn how he would answer and consider what he would say. Would he contend with me in his great power? No, he would certainly take note of me. Then an upright man could reason with him, and I would be delivered from ever from my judge. If I go east, he is not there, and if I go west, I cannot find him. When he is at work in the north, I cannot behold him. When he turns to the south, I cannot see him. Yet he knows the way I have taken. When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have followed in his tracks. I have kept his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. But he is unchangeable, and who can oppose him? He does what he desires, for he carries out his decree against me, and he has many such plans. Therefore I am terrified in his presence. When I consider this, I fear him. God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me. Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face. Job chapter 24. Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment? Why may those who know him never see his days? Men move boundary stones, they pasture stolen flocks, they drive away the donkey of the fatherless and take the widow's ox in pledge. They push the needy off the road and force all the poor of the land into hiding. Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go to work foraging for food. The wasteland is food for their children. They gather fodder in the fields and glean the vineyards of the wicked. Without clothing, they spend the night naked, they have no covering against the cold. Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter. The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast, the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt. Without clothing, they wander about naked, they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry. They crush olives within their walls, they tread the wine presses, but go thirsty. From the city men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out, yet God charges no one with wrongdoing. Then there are those who rebel against the light, not knowing its ways or staying on its paths. When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. The eye of the adulterer watches for twilight, thinking, no eye will see me, he covers his face. In the dark they dig through houses. By day they shut themselves in, never to experience the light. For to them, deep darkness is their morning. Surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness. They are but foam on the surface of the water. Their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one turns toward their vineyards. As drought and heat consume the melting snow, so Sheol steals those who have sinned. The womb forgets them, the worm feeds on them. They are remembered no more. So injustice is broken like a tree. They prey on the barren and childless, and show no kindness to the widow. Yet by his power, God drags away the mighty. Though rising up, they have no assurance of life. He gives them a sense of security, but his eyes are on their ways. They are exalted for a moment, then they are gone. They are brought low and gathered up like all others. They are cut off like heads of grain. If this is not so, then who can prove me a liar and reduce my words to nothing? Job chapter twenty five. Then Bildad the Shuhite replied, Dominion and awe belong to God. He establishes harmony in the heights of heaven. Can his troops be numbered? On whom does his light not rise? How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon does not shine and the stars are not pure in his sight, how much less man who is but a maggot, and the son of man who is but a worm? Job chapter twenty six Then Job answered, How you have helped the powerless and saved the arm that is feeble, how you have counseled the unwise and provided fully sound insight. To whom have you uttered these words? And whose spirit spoke through you? The dead tremble, those beneath the waters and those who dwell in them. Sheol is naked before God, and Abadon has no covering. He stretches out the north over empty space. He hangs the earth upon nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds. Yet the clouds do not burst under their own weight. He covers the face of the full moon, spreading over it his cloud. He has inscribed a horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The foundations of heaven quake, astounded at his rebuke. By his power he stirred the sea. By his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his breath the skies were cleared. His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Indeed, these are but the fringes of his ways. How faint is the whisper we hear of him, who then can understand the thunder of his power? Job chapter 27. Job continued his discourse. As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice, the Almighty, who has embittered my soul. As long as my breath is still within me, and the breath of God remains in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will not utter deceit. I will never say that you are right. I will maintain my integrity until I die. I will cling to my righteousness and never let go. As long as I live, my conscience will not accuse me. May my enemy be like the wicked and my opponent like the unjust. For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him? Will he delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times? I will instruct you in the power of God. I will not conceal the ways of the Almighty. Surely all of you have seen it for yourselves. Why then do you keep up this empty talk? This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage the ruthless receive from the Almighty. Though his sons are many, they are destined for the sword, and his offspring will never have enough food. His survivors will be buried by the plague, and their widows will not weep for them. Though he heaps up silver like dust and piles up a wardrobe like clay, what he lays up the righteous will wear, and his silver will be divided by the innocent. The house he built is like a moth's cocoon, like a hut set up by a watchman. He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more. When he opens his eyes, all is gone. Terrors overtake him like a flood. A tempest sweeps him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he is gone. It sweeps him out of his place. It hurls itself against him without mercy, as he flees headlong from its power. It claps its hands at him and hisses him out of his place. 2 Corinthians 1, verses 12-24. For this is our boast. Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God, not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God. For we do not write you anything that is beyond your ability to read and understand. And I hope that you will understand us completely, as you have already understood us in part, that you may boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of our Lord Jesus. Confident of this, I plan to visit you first, so that you might receive a double blessing. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to return to you from Macedonia, and then to have you help me on my way to Judea. When I planned this, did I do it carelessly? Or do I make my plans by human standards so as to say, yes, yes, and also no, no? But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by me and Sylvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him it has always been yes, for all the promises of God are yes in Christ. And so through him, our amen is spoken to the glory of God. Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us, placed his seal on us, and put his spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come. I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. So I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I grieve you, who is left to cheer me but those whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did, so that on my arrival I would not be grieved by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would share my joy. For through many tears I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart, not to grieve you, but to let you know how much I love you. Now if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you, to some degree, not to overstate it. The punishment imposed on him by the majority is sufficient for him. So instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. My purpose in writing you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And if I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven it in the presence of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan should not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes. Psalm 41. Blessed is the one who cares for the poor, the Lord will deliver him in the day of trouble. The Lord will protect and preserve him. He will bless him in the land and refuse to give him over to the will of his foes. The Lord will sustain him on his bed of illness and restore him from his bed of sickness. I said, O Lord, be gracious to me, heal me, for I have sinned against you. My enemies say with malice, When will he die and be forgotten? My visitor speaks falsehood, he gathers slander in his heart, he goes out and spreads it abroad. All who hate me whisper against me, they imagine the worse for me. A vowed disease has been poured into him, he will never get up from where he lies. Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. But you, O Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up, that I may repay them. By this I know that you delight in me, for my enemy does not triumph over me. In my integrity you uphold me, and set me in your presence forever. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen. Proverbs twenty two verses five and six. Thorns and snares lie on the path of the perverse. He who guards his soul stays far from them. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Today's devotional is coming from Second Corinthians chapter one, verse thirteen, and this is just to encourage you today in a pastoral way. Have you ever tried to grasp things in the Bible and you feel like I just don't understand it? I don't know what it's trying to say. And there's definitely some really fun, you know, deep dives that you can get into in the Bible, you know, the book of the prophets and the book of Revelation, you know, some things that are just so mysterious. But overwhelmingly, this is true right here. What Paul says to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 13. For we do not write you anything that is beyond your ability to read and understand. In the NLT it says, our letters have been straightforward, and there is nothing written between the lines, and nothing you can't understand. And that goes, you know, from knowing who you are in Christ, knowing what it means to be made righteous, knowing how efficacious the blood of Christ that was spilled for you is to forgive you of your sins, to cover you, and to be able to draw you close to the presence of God, to know not to do this and to go and do that. It's just very clear, it's straightforward. And if there is something that might seem a little difficult to understand, well know this the author of the entire Bible is the Holy Spirit who dwells on the inside of every believer, and the Holy Spirit can open up your understanding so that you can grasp whatever it is that He wants you to grasp. I hope that this very simple devotional today is able to encourage you. Let's pray. Father, I come to you in the name of Jesus, and today, as I lift up all of our listeners, I just want to say thank you for giving us access to your word, to know, to read, to understand, from the most simplest practical aspects to the most profound and deepest places. Thank you for your Holy Spirit, who opens up our understanding and helps us. Draw us close by the presence of your Holy Spirit and reveal your Son to us. We ask all these things in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Well, I sure hope you enjoyed today's devotional. If you're getting something out of the Bible 365 podcast, consider sharing it with your family and with your friends. Please continue to pray for me. I am praying for you. Have a great day, and I'll see you tomorrow with day 240.