When You're Ready to Listen

When You're Ready to Listen

By Stephen R VillanuevaReligion & Spirituality
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When You're Ready to Listen episodes

  • EP35 Yahweh According to Job, Job 12:1-25

    The “boys” keep spouting of religious rhetoric, platitudes, which everyone knows, and to Job it is all so boring and exhausting. In contrast, Job reveals that God used to speak to Job and reveal to Job His mysteries, like God does things according to His will and not in some reaction to what we do. Job declares Yahweh’s absolute sovereignty and rule over all aspects of creation and even comments on the inside-out, upside-down logic of God, in that in this life evil people seems to succeed, while those who live righteous suffer.

    Job uses the name Yahweh demonstrating that He does not just know about God, but that he knows God.

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    22 min
  • EP34 Yahweh According to Job, Job 11:1-20

    Legalism is the heartbeat of religion, and it has two main characteristics in terms of its relationship with the truth:  1) It distorts the truth to gain advantage over others; or 2) it misapplies the truth to gain advantage over others. For legalists, the truth is used as a weapon to pull off a power play that is intended to elevate one and put down another. Religious legalism is a dangerous poison that lives in the hearts of all. Legalism is hard to distinguish when the truth is being misapplied, after all, it is the truth. It is almost impossible to reason with a Legalist.

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    32 min
  • EP33 Yahweh According to Job, Job 10:1-22

    We discuss our vain attempts to manipulate God through guilt trips to pleas for mercy, justifications, and so on, to convince God that there must be a better way, that our suffering is either not necessary or not necessary to the extent that He is directing it. We try and convince Him that the paths He has established for our lives is not right and that there is a better way. Yet God’s has a different perspective on our lives. We must not forget that we are His workmanship, His masterpiece, and every moment of our life provides for us an opportunity to know our God intimately. Besides, “Consider the work of God,for who is able to straighten what He has bent?” It is best to learn how to go through these times trusting that our God, who has personally woven every aspect of our being, is now doing what He needs to do to accomplish His Plan-A for our life.

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    38 min
  • EP32 Yahweh According to Job, Job 9:24-35

    Job makes it clear that he was looking for a mediator an arbitrator between him and God. He knew that he could not stand clean before God, still he envisioned a reality where onestands in between and intercedes on his behalf. He did not know it, but he was prophetically declaring the role of both Jesus and the Spirit of God.

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    24 min
  • EP31 Yahweh According to Job, Job 9:21-24

    Job declares that God “completes both the blameless and wicked,” and thereby rejects human innocence and religious if/then theology. True righteousness is God’s gift through faith, not moral achievement. Trials expose whom people ultimately choose: Yahweh or the world. God’s apparent mocking of the innocent’s testing reflects His knowledge that suffering will destroy false dependencies and produce enduring faith. Job’sstatement that earth was given to “the wicked” introduces the unseen government of nations. After Babel, Yahweh assigned nations to lesser elohim, the “Kings of the Earth,” while Satanexercises temporary influence over them. Nevertheless, all remain accountable to Yahweh’s absolute authority.

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    31 min
  • EP30 Yahweh According to Job, Job 9:13-24

    Rahab in Job 9 is identified as “the Boaster” or“Arrogant One”: Satan, the dragon pierced by Yahweh. Rahab also symbolizesrebellious people who trust worldly strength, while Babylon represents spiritual captivity; both contrast with Zion and its faithful inhabitants. The“helpers of Rahab” are demonic powers, including the Beast and False Prophet, destined to crouch beneath Christ. Job then admits that innocence cannotjustify him or alter God’s purposes; he can only plead for mercy. His suffering introduces the difficult doctrine of Yahweh’sabsolute sovereignty: good, evil, judgment, and human history remain entirely under His sovereign, complete authority.

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    37 min
  • EP29 Yahweh According to Job, Job 9:1-12

    Job rejects Bildad’s merit-based theology and acknowledges that no mortal can justify himself before the wise, mighty God.Only God is good; human arguments cannot compel or manipulate Him. Creation, miracles, and sovereign rule testify that Yahweh alone sees and accomplishes what is good. Job’s image of God “snatching away” connects with Jesus’ sheep,the parable of the soils, and harpazō in 1 Thessalonians: believers must continually choose faithful dependence, yet no enemy can seize them from God. The teaching finally links Job’s language to Revelation’s harvest, rapture, and unstoppable wrath, introducing the cosmic “helpers of Rahab.”

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    32 min
  • EP28 Yahweh According to Job, Job 8:1-22

    Bildad’s response to Job’s suffering exposed the cruelty of his “if/then” theology. Bildad assumes suffering proves sin and thatrestoration will come only if Job becomes pure, upright, and prayerful. He appeals to “the wisdom of yesterday,” treating inherited tradition as unquestionable truth. Yet Scripture reveals Yahweh as merciful to all, blessing by grace rather than merit. Job’s eventual restoration was God’s sovereignpurpose, not payment for improved conduct. The church at Smyrna likewise shows that faithfulness may require endurance until death. True godliness does not judge sufferers; it strengthens them, shares their pain, and loves selflessly.

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    31 min
  • EP27 Yahweh According to Job, Job 7:1-21

    Job explains that life is nothing but a temporary struggle for there is nothing permanent in this life, nothing of enduring value, and the destiny of one is the destiny of us all. We may have moments of wonder and joy in this life, but it seems everyone is assigned their months, if not years, of futility—long and weary nights of misery. No one escapes this dreadful plight of humanity. And in the midst of intense suffering, it is normal to find yourself on the floor, helpless, desperate, overwhelmed, paralyzed, drowning in wave-after-wave that washes over you, stumbling around like a drunken man, venting with useless words, wondering what is the use of it all and how can yoube of any use to God in this life when you are just wasting away on the verge of utter collapse and defeat. Giving voice to the experience is the often only real release one can find. And that is what Job defends, his right to give voice to his feelings, to his journey.

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    35 min
  • EP26 Yahweh According to Job, Job 6:15-30

    Fear causes people, like Job’s friends, to say terrible things, religious diatribe that simply does not help. In their fear they make what is happening to the one suffering all about themselves. But the watcher of all humanity has made Job his target not because he did anything “bad” and not because Job is a burden, not because he is like the raging sea or the fireburning dragon, but because He is obsessed with Job and wants to give Job the opportunity to know and experience even more of Him.

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    22 min

About When You're Ready to Listen

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This podcast is dedicated to exploring the truth about God: things you may not have understood, may not have been taught, or quite frankly, had a very hard time believing.