Good morning. Let's open this
morning's worship with hymn number 18 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns
hymn book number 18. The name is only inspired word,
your only one great head. The prophets and apostles too,
we feel the sinner's dread. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of It shows us Christ, it only speaks
of Him. The prophecies of old record,
God's wondrous mighty deeds. Those deeds of power and of grace
were sent forth from all unseen. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of the Lord. it shows us Christ, it only speaks
of Him. He whom the Lamb, the Baptist,
sent thus in the tolling o'er, as it was promised long before,
the Son, as then, has come. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Our Substitute obeyed the Lord,
and died and rose again. And in His Word our Savior said,
Rejoice, I come again. Please be seated. Good morning. Thank you, Tom. I asked Tom to open the service
this morning without him. So many times the Bible has looked
to for precepts and principles to try to live by. We really
do believe and by God's grace rejoice in the revelation that
God makes of his son in the scriptures. And to try to understand the
Bible apart from Christ is to miss its meaning altogether. And my hope this morning is the
Lord will be pleased to reveal Christ to our hearts, particularly
in this first hour. Well, in both hours, but particularly
as it is typified in the book of, as Christ is revealed in
the book of Job. So the first hour this morning
will be in Job chapter 19, if you'd like to turn with me there
in your Bibles. I want us to have a word of prayer
first. Thank you for your prayers last weekend. I felt like the
meeting in Ole was very profitable to the church there and to Caleb
and Bobby and seemed that everybody was encouraged. So I'm thankful for Jeff and Hugo
faithfully preaching Christ to you all here last Sunday. And I also want to pray for Ryan's
dad, Steve. Steve is suffering with pancreatic
cancer and had to be taken to the hospital yesterday. with
some complications and so, Ryan, remember to pray for your dad.
All right, let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that once again
you have gathered us together. That we might meet with you and
that you would be pleased to fulfill your promise in enabling
us to worship, in revealing to our hearts the person of thy
dear son, in giving us hope and rest and comfort and peace in
him. Lord, we thank you that you've
given us your word and we ask that you would open what no man
can shut. Lord, open your word and reveal
Christ. Open the windows of heaven and
come down. Open our hearts. Lord, if you don't do that, then all
that we do here is in vain. Lord, we are fearful of that. And so we
cast our care upon the knowing Lord that that you've cared for
us and do care for us. Lord, we pray for Steve. We ask
Lord for your mercy. We ask for understanding and
wisdom to be given to those that minister to him now and enable
them to treat him. Lord, we pray for Ryan and for
the family and ask Lord that you would give them hope in Christ
through this trial. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Job chapter 19. what you and I have the greatest
need for right now. And each of us have different
needs in this world. But what we have the greatest
need for is to know God, to know God. And if we are to know him,
we are dependent upon him to reveal himself to us. And if
he's pleased to do that, it'll be by his word. It'll be by the
revelation that he's given to us in his word. Philip asked the Lord, one of
the disciples said, Lord, show us the Father and it suffice
of us. If you'll just show us God, we'll
be pleased and we'll have all we need. It'll be sufficient. And the Lord said, Philip, have
I been with you so long that you don't know that if you've
seen me, you've seen the father for I and the father one. And
so to know God is to have the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the son of God, revealed to our hearts by God's word and
by the power of his spirit. And that's why we come here.
And that's our hope and that's our prayer. And as I said, we
don't go to the Bible in order to find principles and precepts
that we might practice them and figure out some truths that are
gonna help us live a better life. We go to scriptures looking for
a person. And that person is none other
than the Lord Jesus Christ. I've titled this message Christ
Revealed. Christ revealed in the person
of our suffering servant, Job chapter 19. Now, surely the book
of Job teaches us how it is that God sends afflictions in the
life of his people in order to bless them. how he keeps them
and always brings them through their afflictions safe to the
other side. We learn that clearly in this
story. They tell us, those who have
more knowledge than I do, that Job was probably the very first
book of the Bible ever written and the first story that was
told. And if that's true, then it's
the, It's the genesis, if you will, of the revelation of Christ.
And how oftentimes we look at the book of Job only for those
examples of suffering. God uses suffering, surely, in
the lives of his children in order to break them of their
dependence upon anything other than Christ. Is it not during
our sufferings that we're shut up to depend upon the Lord Jesus
when nothing else can meet our need? David said in Psalm 119
verse 71, he said, it is good for me that I have been afflicted
that I might learn thy statutes. It is good for me that I've been
afflicted that I might learn the gospel, that I might learn
who Christ is and find my hope in him. In verse 75 of that same
psalm, he said, I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right
and that thou in faithfulness hath afflicted me. Afflictions
come from the hand of a loving father who is always faithful
to use them for the good of his people. And so we read. In Romans chapter 8 verse 28,
you know, child of God, you know that all things work together
for good for them that love God and those that are called according
to his purpose. And surely that lesson is clearly
taught in the book of Job. We cannot study the book of Job
without considering what the Holy Spirit gave us in James
chapter 5. If you'd like to open your Bibles
to James chapter 5, verse 10. James chapter 5, verse
10. Take, my brethren, the prophets. who have spoken in the name of
the Lord for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy,
which endure. You have heard of the patience
of Job and have seen the end of the Lord. and that the Lord
is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So the Holy Spirit has
told us this story of Job is an example to you and the sufferings
that the Lord sends your way to endure, to continue looking
and hoping in Christ and to know that these afflictions are for
your good and for his glory. That having been said, who suffered
more affliction than Christ? Job lost seven sons and three
daughters all at the same time, lost all of his children. So
the Lord Jesus Christ lost his children in the fall. God had
given him his people, his bride, his children, his church, in
the covenant of grace before the world ever began. What a
sad story the fall is, where all the people of God spiritually
died and were separated from God and were in need of redemption,
which is what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do. who was more patient, who waited
on the father. You know, you read the book of
Job and there's some examples of Job in the book of Job that
show a lack of patience and a lack of trust. And yet, if we're able
by God's grace to see this as a picture of Christ, we know
that he suffered patiently to his dying breath. The very last
thing the Lord Jesus said on Calvary's cross is, Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit. He waited on the Father, knowing
that the Father would raise him from the dead, that he had been
faithful to his heavenly Father, who endured to the end more than
he did, who was made more happy We just read in James chapter
five how we're to learn from Job's example who endured to
the end how that God had mercy upon him and restored to Job
all that he had lost and how much more the heavenly father
restored to the Lord Jesus Christ all that had been lost in the
fall. Is there anyone to whom God was
more pitiful, more loving than to his son? If the Lord is pleased to reveal
himself in his word as the ultimate example,
the infinite example of suffering, it will profit our souls so much
more than it would to just look to the life of Job and compare
our experiences to him. Those are an encouragement. But
to see Job as a type of Christ is salvation to our souls. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
suffering servant. He is our sin bearer. He is our
surety. He's our substitute. He's the
only one that was able to satisfy the justice of God for the salvation
of his people. And so when we read the words
of Job, I want to encourage you and me to consider who Christ
is. I remind you in Job chapter 1,
verse 1, how the Lord defines Job. When he says of Job, he
is perfect and upright, one who fears God and one who eschews
evil. Now, that can be said of every
one of God's elect. Every one of God's elect. How
we hate our sin and how we do fear God and how in Christ we
are perfect and upright. But that can be said perfectly
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's true of him. He's perfect
and upright. Oh, he didn't just eschew evil,
he kept himself from it completely. And it wasn't until he went to
Calvary's cross that God made him who knew no sin to be made
sin, to be sin for us. And he suffered the shame and
the sorrow and the separation of sin like no man ever has. After Job had lost his children, His wife said, why don't you
just curse God and die? And he rebuked his wife and corrected
her. And the scripture says, in all
this, Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly. In the sufferings
that the Lord Jesus Christ endured on Calvary's cross, he sinned
not, nor did he charge God foolishly. And he is loving enough to his
wife to rebuke her for her unbelief. Listen to this. Here's the words
of Job. And they're self-righteous coming
from a man. But as they speak to us of Christ,
they're true. My righteousness, I hold fast. I will not let it go. My heart
shall not reproach me so long as I live. And Job's friends
were telling him, this is all your fault. And Job was promoting
his own righteousness, saying, no, this is not my fault. I'm
gonna hold on to my righteousness. How the Lord Jesus Christ, those
words are true of him. My righteousness I hold fast
and I'll not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me
so long as I live. Here's another statement from
Job. Let me be weighed in an even
balance that God may know my integrity. He's saying to God,
put me on the balance scale of your law. And I'll prove to you that I've
not broken your law. An even balance. Now, if you
or I are put on the balance scale of God's law, we're going to
be found wanting. But how that can be said of Christ.
So these are just a few examples of how I want us to see Job as a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You have your Bibles open to
Job 19. Job in chapter 19 is responding
to the false accusations that Bildad had just made of him in
chapter 18. And Bildad Eliphaz and Zophar, Job calls
them his miserable comforters. They were his friends that came,
his supposed friends, that came to try to encourage him and help
him through this great trial. But everything they said to him
only discouraged him. Why is that? Well, Bildad's name
means confusing love. That's what his name means. It
means confusing love. Bildad, if you read the words
of Bildad and his other miserable comforters, you'll find that
they mixed. They mixed law and grace. They made some statements about
God that were very true, and then they made statements that
weren't true. And how typical this is of Not only the false
gospel that is prevalent in this world, every religion of the
world, even if you go to something as legalistic as Islam or Judaism,
they'll talk about grace. They'll talk about grace. But
they will mix law with grace and make your salvation dependent
upon not only the grace of God, but something you have to do
in order to make his grace work for you. And that's what Bildad's
a picture of here. But not only is the false religions
of this world that way, but you're that way and I'm that way. Why?
Because we have two natures. We have an old man that's always
looking to the law, that's always looking to performance, always
looking to behavior in order to try to get assurance of salvation.
And we have a new man given to us in Christ that, well, what
do Rebecca say? Why am I thus? Why am I thus? Why do I have this struggle in
my womb between these two children that she was bearing? And the
Lord said, because there's two nations within you. There's two
nations within you. And the younger, the older will
serve the younger. Now Esau was born before Jacob. And Esau is a picture of our
old man, our flesh. And Jacob is a picture of our
new man, Christ. And you have that in your heart.
I have that in my heart. We have that in our experience.
We have these two natures. And for the child of God, and
only the child of God understands this thing of having two natures.
The unbeliever can't comprehend it because they only have one
nature. But if you've been born of the Spirit and you have the
new nature of Christ, you understand the struggle that you have and
how you are how you are victim often to the accusations of the
accuser of the brethren and of your own flesh who would have
you to place your trust somewhere other than Christ. And yet, in
hearing the gospel again, which is why we're here right now,
you're delivered. You're delivered from that old
man. And you're reminded from what God has said, that that's
confusing love. Bildad is confusing love, you
can't reconcile the two things. The Lord says if it is of works
it can no longer be of grace, otherwise works is not works.
You can't mix works and grace, it's either one way or the other.
Either our salvation is all of grace or it's all of works but
that's the accusations that Bildad was making. And that's what they
accused the Lord of and that's what your old man accuses you
of. Job chapter 19, the name Job
translated means hated. That's what his name translated
means in the old language. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
if the world hate you, know that it hated me first. He went on
to say they hated me without a cause. The Lord Jesus Christ
is hated by the natural man. And the truth is that you and
I came into this world as God haters. Not having the mind of
Christ, not having the new man, not having the new birth, not
having any understanding of what God has done and who he is, we
are in opposition to him. The Lord Jesus himself said you
either for me or you are against me, there's no middle ground.
There's no middle ground, there's no riding the fence, you either You're either for
him or you're against him. And God takes those who are by
nature at enmity with him. That's what the father said to
him. Sit thou here at my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool. And God takes those who are by
nature at enmity with him and causes them to do what you're
doing right now. Sit at his footstool. and believe
what he has said. Sit thou here at my right hand
until I make all thine enemies thy footstool. Job is a picture
of Christ and that Christ was hated. Turn with me to Psalm
69, Psalm 69. Psalm of David, and we know that
David was not only king, but he was
a prophet. And our Lord is called the Son
of David. And if any man in the Old Testament
typifies Christ, surely it's David. And look what David says
in verse four of Psalm 69. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy
me being my enemies wrongfully are mighty. We hated the Lord
Jesus Christ without a cause. He had nothing in his heart but
love. He had nothing in his work but
redemption. And yet we stood in opposition
with him. Now look at the last phrase in
that verse. Then, I restored that which I
took not away. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
take away our life with God. We took that away. When we sinned
against God, that's all on us. And he says, though they hated
me without a cause, I restored that which I took not away. Oh, what hope, what hope. So chapter 19, then Job answered
Bildad, this is God's answer to that mixture of love, that
false gospel that would confuse law with works, law with grace
and works with grace. And so the hated one gives the
answer. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
answers all questions, all questions, all the confusion, all the debate,
all the controversy that is within us and what's in this world.
The Lord Jesus Christ answers it. Oh, I'm so thankful that
we've got one who can only speak the truth and every answer he
gives stands in correction of the confusing
love of this world. How long will you vex my soul
and break me in pieces with words? He made his soul an offering
for sin. Some would say that what the
Lord Jesus did on Calvary's cross was a legal transaction. that he was just satisfying justice.
No, God made him sin who knew no sin. God saw the travail of
his soul and God was satisfied. The Lord Jesus Christ experienced
in the soul of his being. This wasn't just a pasted on,
imputed sin that he bore. He bore it in his body, yes,
but his soul was affected by this. How long, how long will
you vex my soul? Look at verse three, these 10
times you have reproached me. Now we know what the word number
10 is in the Bible. It's a number for the law. That when God made Christ to
be sin on Calvary's cross, the law had to be satisfied because
all of the sins of all of God's people placed on him, the law
had to have justice. All 10 commandments of which
you and I have never kept one, the Lord Jesus Christ bore them
all. And he says, 10 times, you have
reproached me. Oh, I'm so thankful that Christ
Jesus the Lord is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believeth. He satisfied all the demands
of God's holy law. Look at verse four. While we read the rest of verse
three, are you not ashamed that make yourself strange to me?
And I have in the margin of my Bible that harden yourself against
me. You've hardened yourself against
me. The law is hard. The law is inflexible. The law of God does not say,
do your best and I'll be satisfied. The law of God demands absolute
perfection. And here our Lord is saying 10
times, you've reproached me. You're so hard against me. Yes,
that is God's law and we don't want anything to do with it.
We need one who's kept the law and satisfied justice. Verse four, and be it indeed
that I have erred, my error remaineth with me. Only I understand the
extent of what I'm suffering. There's no way you can understand
it. There's no way you can enter into it. We know a little bit
about shame. We know a little bit about suffering.
We know about separation from God as a result of our sin. Your
sin has separated you from your God. We know a little bit about
that. We know a little bit about sorrow.
But the truth is that our sin doesn't bother us much. It really
doesn't. We get over those things pretty
quickly, don't we? The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
bore our sins, knew the full weight of what it is to be separated
from his Father. He knew the full weight of what
sorrow really was. In Psalm 38, he said, I will
be sorry for my sins. He knew the full shame of sin. And so when Job's speaking here,
he says, if indeed I have erred, My error remaineth with myself.
I'm the only one that can fully comprehend the extent of my error. If indeed, verse five, you will
magnify yourself against me and plead against me my reproach,
know now that God has overthrown me and God has compassed me with
his net. What was happening on Calvary's
cross is God was doing business with God. That's what it was. It pleased God to bruise him. It was the sword of God's justice
that was sheathed into the heart of God's son. It was the son
of God who was offering up to his father a righteousness and
a satisfaction of justice that no man could offer God. The Lord
Jesus Christ is not, as the religious world would say, they show him
with his hands extended saying, you know, look what I've done,
won't you accept me? And won't you, as if he's making
an offer to us. No, he's doing that. He's suspended
between heaven and earth, being cursed by the Father. Cursed
is everyone that hangeth upon a tree. He's suffering under
the wrath of his Father. And Job is saying, God's done
this to me. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
prayed, Father, if there be any way this cup can pass from me,
let it be nevertheless not my will, but thy will be done. The
Lord Jesus Christ had agreed with his father to drink dry
the bitter dregs of the cup of sin. And that's exactly what
he did. And there was no other way for
our sin to be put away. There was no other way for us
to satisfy the demands of God's justice other than what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. Look at verse seven. Behold,
I cry out in the margin of my Bible that word wrong. And it
wasn't wrong that Christ suffered the wrath of God. Justice demanded
it. When God became sin, the justice
of God required death. That's the penalty of sin. The
word in the margin of my Bible is the word violence. And I've
looked that word up and that is a much better translation.
What God was doing to his son was not wrong, but it was violent.
It was violent like you and I have never known violence. I cry out of violence, but I'm
not heard. I cry aloud, but there's no judgment. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Sin and justice required that
from three o'clock, from noon to three o'clock, from the sixth
hour to the ninth hour, It became black as night, black as any
night that there ever was in the middle of the day. What is God saying? That's why
he's forsaken his son. When he saw sin on his son, his
holiness required him to justify his holiness and to punish that
sin and to separate himself from that. His eyes, the scripture
says in Habakkuk, are too pure to look upon iniquity. He could
not look upon that sin. So when Christ is crying out,
Job is telling us something of what he was experiencing. He hath stripped me of my glory
and taken the crown from my head. These things we can't understand.
We can't comprehend what that means. But we believe it. We believe that there was never
a condescension like the condescension of God the Son leaving his rightful
throne and being birthed in such humble settings. You've taken
my crown from off my head. when he suffered the contradiction
of men. Here he was walking the face
of this earth as the creator and sustainer of all of life,
the God of glory, and no man saw him but just as another man. Well, he's the son of Mary and
Joseph. We know him, he's just like us. God took his crown from off his
head. God stripped him of his glory
and no place was his glory more stripped of than when he hung
on Calvary's cross and suffered the full weight and wrath of
God's justice. The axe has been laid to the
root of the tree. And surely the Lord Jesus Christ
is the root of the matter, and he is the root of the tree. And
God took the acts of his justice, and he cut that tree down. Look
at what verse nine says, or verse 10. He hath destroyed me on every
side, and I am gone, my hope hath he removed? He hath also
kindled his wrath against me, and he counted me unto them as
one of his enemies. His troops, this was a battle,
this was a whole army of justice that came against him. His troops
come together and they raise up their way against me and encamp
round about my tabernacle. And so Isaiah says, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. saith the Lord, speak ye comfortably
unto Jerusalem and tell them their warfare is accomplished. Their sin and iniquity has been
purged. Now remember them no more. That's
why Christ did what Christ did on the cross. There's so much more in this
chapter. And with the time as it is, there's
no way I can deal with the rest of this chapter in this first
hour. So we're going to take a break
and come back and I'll save the other message from First Samuel
for another day. And we'll continue to look at
this glorious picture of Christ and what he's done in order to
save his people. All right, let's take a break.