It is good to be in the house
of the Lord. I was glad. They said, let us
go. If you would turn with me, please,
in your Bibles to John chapter six. And I'm gonna read from three
different places, but I've been, God's put this on my heart lately. In religion, they love to talk
about Once saved, always saved. You'll never hear a believer
say that. And we want to see, like every good lie, it has a
shred of truth in it. But what does the Word of the
Lord say? That's what matters. In John
verse 37, Christ has said, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of God the Father which sent
me. And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that
all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise
it up again the last day. This is very clear, God the Father
gave Christ to people in the covenant of grace. And Christ
agreed, covenant with God, that he would do everything necessary
for the salvation of their souls. And he will lose none, not one
more, not one less. He'll save everyone that God
gave him. So then we could say that it is true, all that God
gave him will be saved. But then if you look at Matthew
24, in verse 11, and it says, and many
false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure to the
end. the same shall be saved. You believe in God? That's good. But the question is, will we
endure to the end? How many of us know people who
profess to be believers, only to fall away? Well, how do we
endure to the end? Well, it's pretty simple. In
Philippians, Philippians chapter 4, in verse 4 it says, Rejoice,
rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Let your
moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand. Be
careful for nothing, But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace
of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Every day I have to plead with
God, Lord, keep me. If Christ doesn't keep me, I'll
not endure to the end. I'll prove myself to be false
all along. I am totally dependent on the
Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of my soul, all the way. And I have to plead with him,
Lord, please don't, I don't know if you do this, I pray every
day, Lord, save me from myself. Don't let me have what I want.
You alone know what is right and good. Because I know if the
Lord took his hand off me, you'd never see my face in here again. I'd never believe, I'd leave.
I'd deny Christ and pursue the things of this world with every
bit of energy in my flesh. I am dependent on Christ, as
Brother Murray said, for the next breath I take. That's how
dependent we are on Christ. Thanks be to God. Christ keeps
his people that God has given him. Let us try to pray. Let us pray. Lord, we count it a great blessing
to gather here today And we know, Lord, that you are
present. You have told us that, where two or more gathered, you
will be. And we come here as needy sinners, needing to hear
that Christ has saved his people. And we plead with you, Lord,
that you would speak to the hearts of your gospel preachers this
morning, wherever your people gather. and that you would send
your spirit to them and enable them to declare Christ and him
crucified simply and truthfully and not hold anything back. And as your people, we plead
with you, Lord, please send your spirit to us to give us the faith
to believe what is declared, not only to believe it, but to
love it and the willingness to defend it when need be. And we particularly pray for
those who sit under the preaching of your gospel and remain in
unbelief that today might be the day, Lord, by your will,
that you would come to them, give them faith to rest and believe
on Christ, and that we would give you all
the glory, all the glory. We do pray for those you've touched
with illness, We pray, Lord, if it be your will that you would
heal their bodies, but more importantly, heal their souls and give them
the faith to rest and to believe in you. We ask it in Christ's
name. Let's all stand together, we'll
sing hymn number eight from your spiral gospel hymn book, number
eight. Hearts and souls aspire to lift
up from this earthly fire. Only we think of heavenly things
and know the joy Thy presence brings. ? Lord, let us see the Savior's
face ? ? And let us taste of thy sweet grace ? ? May open
ears thy glories hear ? ? And may we smell thy praise ? Be pleased to open heaven's door,
And on our heads thy blessings pour, All wretched, poor, and
needy we. O may this day be blessed the
most, that Jesus Christ becomes the first to lead our souls Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles again to
Job chapter 19. Job chapter 19. And I realize
that some will will be listening to this message later that don't
know that it is a continuation from the first hour. And I would
just encourage them to go back and try to listen to at least
the introduction to that first hour because we are considering
how it is that Job is a picture of Christ. And that Job's sufferings,
though they are exemplary to us in the afflictions that the
Lord sends our way, and how faithful our God is to keep us. Oh, that's
the key. You know, Michael said, one saved
always saved. It all depends on who saves you.
You know, if the Lord saves you, then yes, no man can pluck them
out of my hand. No man. That means you can't
pluck yourself out of God's hand. And that's our hope. He won't
let us depart and we don't want to depart. Not if he's done a
work of grace in our hearts. And Job is a picture of that. But more so than that, Job pictures
for us the one who himself is perfect and upright, one who
fears God and eschews evil like no other man. I quoted in the
first hour a passage from the book of Job where Job said, my
righteousness I will hold fast. My heart shall not reproach me
as long as I live. Now, when Job made that statement,
he was being self-righteous. He was insisting upon his innocence
before God. But as we read these words, and
God, by his grace, enables us to see Christ and what he has
done in saving his people, those words are true of him. My righteousness
I will hold fast. The hope that we have is that
we have a righteousness before God in the person of Christ that
we cannot achieve outside of him. Another place Job said,
let me be weighed in an even balance that God may know mine
integrity. Job was insisting that God put
him on a balance scale. And that scale would have the
law on one side and Job on the other side. And Job thinks that
it's going to even out. and that Job would prove to God
his integrity in keeping God's law. Oh, as self-righteous as
that is to be said of a sinner, it is true of Christ. If he weighs
us on a balance, an even balance, we're going to be found wanting.
But the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied all the demands of God's law.
And that law did not tip the scale when he was on it. And we have a righteousness and
integrity in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We saw that
in the first 10 or 11 verses or so. Let's go back to verse
nine. Job is responding to the false
accusations of Bildad. Bildad's name translated means
confusing love. A message of salvation that depends
upon God's grace along with something that I produce is confusing. The only salvation that gives
many hope is a salvation that does not depend upon me to take
any part in it. He does it all. and he does it
all by himself. That's the only love, that's
the only grace that gives a sinner any hope. So, Job says in verse
nine, he has stripped me of my glory and taken the crown from
off my head. How can we begin to comprehend
how the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the angels in heaven
worshiped him. How he was the creator and sustainer of all
things. And yet he takes his crown off
when he becomes a man. And those angels couldn't understand
it. He said he could call 12 legions
of angels from heaven to deliver him if he wanted to. I can just see. A legion, as
I understand, is about 9,000, as far as best I can remember. And how many times we read in
the Bible where God would send one angel to wipe out a whole
nation. One angel would wield the sword
of God's justice and destroy thousands of the enemies of God's
people at one time. And the Lord said, I could call
12 legions of angels to deliver me if I would. I can see those
angels sitting on the precipice of heaven watching our Lord suffer
on Calvary's cross and waiting for him to just say in a moment,
come. And all 12 legions of them would
have come with flaming swords and destroyed this entire world
at his command. And yet he didn't speak a word.
He went as a lamb to the slaughter. He didn't open his mouth. He
didn't defend himself. He was guilty before God, bearing
the sins of his people. He had no defense. And no man
took his life from him. He laid his life down willingly. And so God stripped him of his
crown and of his glory. Verse 10, he hath destroyed me
on every side, and I am gone, and my hope hath he removed like
a tree. God laid the axe to the root
of the tree and the tree came down and where the tree fell,
there shall it lie. So our Lord springs forth in
the church as a root out of dry ground, as a stem of Jesse that
comes forth from that tree that was cut down. And there's our
hope now. The tree is once again producing
life as it brings forth its stems from its root. I've noticed in
my yard there are some trees you can cut down like a pine
tree or a palm tree and nothing comes up. But you cut down an
oak tree, And you got 20 little oak trees coming out of that
root. And you got to keep killing them and keep that tree from
coming. That tree just wants to bring forth life. And there's
our Lord. He's the stem of Jesse, the root
out of dry gown. God cut him down on Calvary's
cross and now he's bringing forth new life. He hath kindled his wrath against
me, hath counted me unto him as one of his enemies. His troops
come together. They raise up their way against
me and encamp round about my tabernacle. Scripture says that the Lord
Jesus Christ has tabernacled among us. That tabernacle is
the tabernacle of his flesh. It's the presence of God. And
the hounds of hell surrounded the cross and the troops of God's
justice demanded death against him. Look at verse 13. He hath put
my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintances are very estranged
from me. My kinfolks have failed, and
my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house,
and my maids, they count me as a stranger. I am an alien in
their sight." Listen to what the Lord said in John chapter
16, That you, now the Lord speaking
to his disciples, he said, the hour is coming that you shall
be scattered and every man shall leave me alone. I looked to my right hand and
to my left hand and there was no man to help me. All ye shall
be offended at me this night, the Lord told the disciples at
the last supper. All ye shall be offended at me.
And Peter himself cursed three times of even knowing him. And
yet our Lord, with a look of mercy and compassion, fixed his
eyes upon Peter, warming himself there by the fire after he had
been thronged and was about to be taken to Calvary. And Peter's
heart was broken. Our Lord didn't look at Peter
with a look of disdain or disgust. He did not look at Peter with
a look of disappointment. Peter, see what you've done?
I told you so. No, he looked at him as he looks
at every sinner. He looked at him the same way
he looks at you and the same way he looks at me. When we deny
him, as we often do, with a look of compassion, and it is the
goodness of God that leadeth to repentance. It is the love
of Christ that constraineth us. He had to go to the cross by
himself. He had to bear this suffering, no man could help
him. You can help him. And you can help him now. You
see, that's what the free will gospel says, that God's making
you an offer of salvation, but he needs your help. He needs
you to do your part. He needs you to accept him. He
needs you to be able to believe on him in order for him to be
able to accomplish your salvation. Oh, he doesn't need any help. No, when he bowed his mighty
head on Calvary's cross and said it is finished, everything necessary,
everything that God required for the salvation of his people,
he accomplished by himself. He put away our sins by the sacrifice
of himself once and for all. And so it was necessary for his
disciples to forsake him. It was necessary for his brethren
to deny him. He was forsaken by all so that
the people for whom he died would not be forsaken at all. He was forsaken by all so that
we would not be forsaken at all. At all. God cannot forsake his
people. Any man that come unto me, I
will in no wise cast him out. No man can pluck you out of my
hand. The Father which gave you to
me is greater than all, and no man can pluck you out of my Father's
hand. And I and the Father are one."
There's our hope. There's the hope of our perseverance. Those whom God, whom Christ died
for, those who believe on him will be kept. And the believer
continues to acknowledge his need to be kept. But God's, but
here's the hope. The hope is not that we would,
not that we would express our need to be kept in such a way
as to convince God to keep us. That's, that's God needing us.
He'll keep us. Hey, Will, the Spirit of God,
you can quench the Spirit of God, but you can't blaspheme
against the Spirit of God. You can't. People worry about
blaspheming against the Spirit. No, a believer cannot blaspheme
against the Spirit of God. That's to deny Christ His glory
and salvation. Now, we quench the Spirit of
God often, but the Spirit of God perseveres. You know, we
often talk about the perseverance of the saints. That's that that
P and the little tulip across it could be could be could be
called something else. It is the perseverance of the
spirit. It is the preservation of the
saints and whom he saves. He keeps. All my friends have
forsaken me. and those friends that forsook
him. He restored them, didn't he? Every one of his disciples. And there's our hope. When his
friends, his children, his believers forsake him now, as we often
do, he restores them. He finds them out fishing in
the boat. He finds them on the Sea of Galilee.
He finds them wherever they've gone to. He finds them huddled,
afraid, scared in the upper room and he appears to them and he
restores them. That's his faithfulness. He's
faithful. He had to be forsaken by all
at Calvary's Cross because he was doing a work that only he
could do and only he could do it by himself. But his friends and his brethren
cannot forsake him now, not eternally, they can't. Peter, Satan has asked to sift
thee, but be of good cheer, I have
prayed for you. The Lord Jesus prayed for his
church. He prayed from the cross when he said, Father, forgive
them for they know not what they do. You and I have no clue what
we're doing when we sin. Our sin is so much, you know,
people say, sometimes you hear people say, well, you know, you
don't know what I've done. And my response to that is always
going to be, it's a whole lot worse than you think it is. It's
a whole lot worse than you think it is. We don't have a clue how
bad our sin is. wallowing your guilt thinking
that you're going to express enough shame and sorrow to God
to earn his favor and his forgiveness. Only the Lord Jesus Christ knows
the weight of sin and the Spirit of God convicts us of our sin,
yes, but we look in faith to Christ to bear the guilt and
shame and separation of our sin before his Father. Father, they
know not what they do. Peter, I've prayed for you. And when you have been converted,
and that doesn't mean to be saved, it means when your mind has been
changed. And it was changed. When he saw
the Lord on the Sea of Galilee and he jumped out of that boat
and swam to the sea, he said, it's the Lord. And he stood before
the Lord and the Lord said, Peter, love us now me. And Peter said,
oh Lord, you know my heart. You know everything there is
to know about me. You know I love you, but you know my love is
not as it ought to be. When you've been converted, when
your mind's been changed and the spirit of God always changes
the hearts and minds of God's people, whenever they forsake
him, whenever they sin against him, he always does a work of
grace. Teach the brethren. And what
did he say? I prayed for you that your faith
fail not. That your faith fail not. I didn't
pray that you wouldn't fall. I didn't pray if he prayed for
him not to fall, he wouldn't have fallen. But in our fall,
our faith cannot fail. Faith cannot fail. If you had
asked Peter after what he did, Peter, are you saved? Peter would
have said, no, I've committed the unpardonable sin. There's
no way I can be saved. I never would have done what
I did. But faith is not determined by whether or not you believe
you're saved, because was Peter saved? Yes, he was saved. But
at that same time, if you had said to Peter, Peter, do you
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God? Do
you believe that he successfully satisfied God's justice? Do you
believe that he's the savior of sinners, that he cannot fail? Peter would have said, absolutely.
Absolutely, I believe that. That's what faith is. Faith is
not believing you're saved or you're one of God's elect. Faith
is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord said, I prayed for
you that your faith fail not. God-given faith cannot fail.
It cannot fail. It will not fail. The gifts of
God are without repentance. When God gives faith, that faith
is forever. It is everlasting. So here we are forsaking the
Lord, and yet he doesn't forsake us. In another place, the apostle
writes, when we believe not, and that's
what sin is, sin is unbelief. when we believe not. Yet, he
remaineth faithful, for he cannot deny himself. There's our hope. There's our hope when we fall
into sin. He remaineth faithful, for he
cannot deny himself. We're part of him, the body of
Christ. He cannot deny his church. Look at verse 16. I called my
servant. He gave me no answer. I treated
him with my mouth. What did the Lord say to the
disciples when he took them into the into the garden of Gethsemane
and he sweat gray drops of blood? What agony he began to experience
the full weight of sin right there in the garden? And. He came back, he said, he came
back to the disciples, could you not pray with me for one
hour? And he went and he rebuked them
and they woke up and they said, oh we've got to pray, we've got
to pray and I'm sure they did. And then he came back and he
found them asleep again. Can you relate? Can you relate? I called to my friends to go
with me and to pray with me, and they heard me not. They slept. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. It's weak. I'm so thankful that
my salvation is not determined or dependent upon the faithfulness
of my prayers or my faithfulness towards God, but His faithfulness
toward us. He went to the cross all by himself. My breath is strange to my wife. Now, what is the breath of God? It's the Spirit of God. It's
the Spirit of God. God created Adam in the garden.
Scripture says he breathed life into his nostrils. When the Holy
Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, there was a great rushing wind.
When the Lord told the prophet to prophesy to these dry bones,
he said, now prophesy into the wind that the Spirit of God might
come and blow and give life. And there we are. My breath,
strange to my wife. The wind blew. And she didn't
know what it was. How often that's still true today.
that we could be more sensitive, if I could say it that way, to
the Holy Spirit. And yet we're so dull and so
slow to believe and so unaffected by what we should be rejoicing
over and broken over and delighting in. My breath is strange to my
wife. Though I am treated for the children's
sake of mine own body." Who are the children of the body? The
body of Christ, that's the church. The hand, the foot, the arm,
the leg, all those parts of the body of Christ that the scripture
defines as the church, they're his children. And I've given
them birth out of my own body? inward friends abhorred me and
they whom I'm loved turned against me. He was despised and rejected
of men. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. Turn with me to Psalm 38, Psalm
38. I love this song. There's so much in this song
about what our Lord experienced when he bore our sin. As I said
earlier, you and I experience sorrow, we experience shame,
we experience separation from God, but we get over it pretty
quick. The Lord experienced it to its
infinite degree. And in that regard, though he committed no sin, it's not the
commission of sin that bothers us. It's the shame and
sorrow and separation that comes as a result of sin. And so in
that regard, he was tried in all ways that we are, yet without
sin. He experienced sin like you and
I have never experienced sin. And that's what Psalm 38 tells
us. Look at verse three, there is
no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there
any rest in my bones because of my sin. He's owning the sins
of his body as his own. He's expressing his sorrow before
God and the separation that he's experienced. For mine iniquities
are gone over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for
me. This is where Job is. Job says there's no soundness.
Job is afflicted with leprosy from head to toe. And in that
regard, he's a type of Christ on the cross. And look at verse
7. For my loins are filled with
a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sore broken. I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. There's what Job's a real picture
of. Yes, we can be encouraged to
know that God was faithful to keep Job in his afflictions,
but how much more We're blessed to our souls to see Job as a
type of Christ suffering the affliction of God in order to
put away our sin. Go back with me to to to Job. Look at verse 20. My bones cleaveth
to my skin and in my flesh I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Maybe you didn't know that's
where skin of our teeth comes from. But there it is right there. Sometimes I feel like I'm saved
by the skin of my teeth. Sometimes I feel like it's just
fading away. God uses that in order to shut
me up to Christ. And Christ is saying, here I
am. You can count my bones. My skin cleaveth to them. I am a worm, he says in Psalm
22, and no man, he didn't look like a man when he hung on Calvary's
cross. A reproach of men. I had no form
nor comeliness. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. There he is. What a miserable,
you know, we have these advertisements on TV to give money to, you know,
to suffering people in the third world country and they show pictures
of the, it's hard to look at that, isn't it? I mean, I have
to turn away from that. I can't look at those children
and what they're going through and not want to go over there
or give them everything I've got. Can you imagine? Here is the Son of God who's
bearing this suffering and this agony for His people and He says,
we hid as it was our face from Him for He had no comeliness,
He had no beauty in Him. There was nothing in Him that
we should desire Him. And that's what we are by nature.
Look at verse 21, have pity upon me and have pity upon me, O my
friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. Now the word pity, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and if I've given anybody the impression that we need to
have pity on him, that's the wrong impression. He's not looking
for pity, he's not looking for pity for me and you. He doesn't,
you know, when the women stopped him as he was carrying the cross
going to Calvary, they made a statement about him being blessed of God
and being sorry for him and he stopped and he said, sorry not
for me, sorry for yourselves. You don't have pity on anybody,
have pity on yourself. But the word here means have
favor upon me. And I think what the Lord's saying
here is the same thing he says in Zechariah. When he says, when
the spirit of grace and the spirit of supplication is poured out
on the house of Israel and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
they will look upon him whom they have pierced and they will
mourn after him as one mourneth for his only son. That's what our Lord's saying.
If the spirit of grace and supplication has been poured out on you and
on me, we will give him all the favor and all the glory and mourn
after knowing him and desire him. Lord, I've got to have Christ. I've got to have a sin bearer. He's not saying feel sorry for
me. He's saying look to me. The hand of God has touched me.
God has afflicted me. No man took his life from him.
He laid down his life willingly and he didn't lay it down nilly
willy for whoever would accept it. He'd laid it down to his
father. He was doing business with God
on Calvary's cross in order to put away the sins of God's elect. And that's exactly what he did.
Look at verse 22. Why do you persecute me as God
and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh, why are we not satisfied
with Christ? And how often we're not. I hope
we are right now. I hope as we hear the gospel,
we're satisfied, we're content, we're at peace, we're at rest.
We say, yes, Christ is all I need. But as soon as we leave this
place, we're gonna want something else out there, aren't we? We're
not gonna be satisfied. And the Lord's saying, why are
you not satisfied with my flesh? Why can you not be content just
with me? Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness. All these other things will be
added unto you. But we spend so much of our time seeking other
things other than Christ, don't we? Oh, that my words were now written. I love this. Look at verse 23.
Oh, that my words were now written. Oh, that they were printed in
a book. They are. We have them right
now. We're reading them. This is the
word of God. That they were graven with an
iron pin and lead in the rock forever. These words cannot change. This
is the Word of God. These are not given by private
interpretation. Holy men of God wrote as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit. We don't know who wrote the book
of Job, but we know that they were inspired of the Spirit of
God. And we know this is the Word of God. And this Word is
given to us to reveal the Son of God. And they're like They're like
an iron pin written in stone to the believer. Oh, we've got
no place else to go. All the words of this world.
Where can you find comfort for your soul? The promises of politicians,
the intellect of educators, the psychobabble of you know, the
psychiatrist and psychology that would have us to hang our hope
somewhere. Where are we going to go? Where are we going to
go? Who's got words of life? He's
the only one that does. His words are life. And my words, we could, We could
just look to and believe on the Word of God. Oh, these other
words would not bother us so much, would they? And we would
not rest our hope in them. And, you know, words are necessary. I'm not discounting the need
of words in whatever arena they might come. What I'm saying is
that you can't find any rest in those words, you can't find
any salvation in those words, you can't find any hope in those
words, only the word of God. For I know that my Redeemer liveth
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth When the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
his church, he redeemed himself. You can't separate the body of
Christ from its head. The Lord Jesus Christ was doing
a redemption for the entire body of Christ. And the trump of God
will sound. And the Lord Jesus Christ will
come. Here's our hope. Job says, I
know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth. And there's the believer's hope,
waiting and watching for that eastern sky to split. for the
trump of God to sound, for the dead in Christ to be raised,
for those of us which are alive to be caught up together with
them in the clouds, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Men of Israel, the angels said
to those disciples on the Mount of Olives when our Lord ascended
up into glory, men of Israel, why stand you here gazing up
into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken
from you will come again in like manner. but you go into Jerusalem
and that's the city of peace and that's where we are right
now. And the Holy Ghost will come upon you and you shall be
my witnesses both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and under
the outermost parts of the world. Look at verse 23, verse 24. that they were graven with an
iron tin and led in a rock forever. One of the ways we know we believe
the gospel is we believe every word that God has spoken. Some
people say, well, how much of the Bible do you have to believe
to be a believer? The very definition of being a believer is that you
believe. You can't take any part of God's
word and say, well, you know, I don't believe that. You bow. I made this point a
couple of Sundays ago. It's interesting to me that the
word bow and bow is spelt the same way in English language,
isn't it? And men will do one or the other. They will bow to
what God has said or they'll bow up against it. Now, verse 26. As people say, well, how can
this be? How can 26 be a picture of Christ? Because the scripture
says that he was risen on the third day and God would not allow
his holy one to see corruption. Worms did not eat his body. He
did not die. He did not waste away in the
grave. He was raised from the dead.
Well, this is a translation problem. And one of the reasons why we
like the King James Bible is because the translators put in
italics the words that don't belong there. Notice in your
Bible that the word worms is an italics. Notice in your Bible
that the word though is an italics. Notice in your Bible that the
word body is an italics. That verse is just a bad translation.
Now we know that it's true when it comes to us. If the Lord tarries,
our bodies are going to rot in the grave. And we have the promise
of God that we're going to see our savior and that he's going
to give us a resurrected body. But as this relates to Christ,
it cannot be. In the margin of my Bible, I've
got an accurate translation. I like my Bible, this particular
one. This is a proper translation
of this verse. After I awake, though this body
be destroyed, yet out of my flesh I shall see God. after I awake, and he did. Three days after they put him
in the tomb. Any part of a day in the Bible is considered a
day. So the Lord was put in the tomb before sunset on Friday,
he was raised as the sun rose on Sunday, and that's three days. Christ was in the grave. Friday,
Saturday, Sunday. He rose victorious. The stone was rolled away, Christ
Jesus came forth out of the grave, and God could not allow his Holy
One to see corruption because God Almighty was, if we could
say it, obligated to raise him from the dead, having been satisfied, the Father being satisfied
with what the Lord Jesus accomplished. after I awake, though this body
be destroyed, and it was, he really died, yet out of my flesh
I shall see God. John chapter 1 verse 18 says,
no man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." And I've
already mentioned that passage over there where Philip said,
show us the Father and it sufficeth us. And the Lord said, Philip,
you don't know? If you've seen me, you've seen
the Father. I am the fullness of the Godhead bodily and all
you're going to know about God you're going to see in who I
am. But the Father? No man has seen him at any time
except the Lord Jesus Christ who is in the bosom of the Father. So only he could say, only he
could say, after I awake though this body be destroyed yet out
of my flesh I shall see God. We see him. We see God in the
person of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ saw the
Father. Whom, verse 27, I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins
be consumed within me. I'm so thankful. that we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
We have one who is able to go into the very presence of God,
the Father, and plead our cause and our case before him, and
that the Father's pleased with him and answers everything that
he asks. What a blessing. What a hope. What salvation. There is none
other. But you should say, why persecute
we him, seeing that the root and that word matter is the word
word, which is the matter. The word of God is the matter. You believe in God's word. And
he says the root, the foundation, the cause of the word is in me. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.
You and I speak so many idle words. You and I say so many
things we ought not to say. Every word that proceeded out
of his mouth was perfect. It's the word of God. The root
of the word who was made flesh is in me. And the hope of your salvation
is in me and all that I've spoken and all that I have done. Be afraid of the sword. The unbeliever doesn't fear God. No fear of God in their heart. This isn't a word of judgment
that the unbeliever is going to bow to. The elect of God will. If you've not come to Christ,
then you're one of His. At some point. The sword of His
tongue. That's what the sword is a representative
of. It's the word of God. He comes with a flaming sword. At some point, He will bring
you to the place where you will have a reverential bowing and
fear of the Word of God. And you will be seeking His mercy
and desiring His salvation, His way, lest the sword of His wrath
fall upon you in the day of judgment. Be afraid of the sword. I am. It's not a cringing slavish
fear where we fear God's judgment in wrath at the day of judgment.
No, that's been taken care of. God has put the fear of God in
our hearts and we bow to what he has said. For wrath bringeth
the punishment of the sword. that you may know there is a
judgment. Yes, there will be a day of judgment. But judgment's been satisfied
in our substitute, in our sin bearer, typified in
the words that Job has spoken here. Justice has been met. Righteousness has been established.
We have a Job. He's hated by the world. He's
loved by his people, who stands before God, having quenched the
fire of God's judgment, having put that fire out. Oh, the Lord
said, be not afraid. Be not afraid. I've taken care
of that. When we bow to the sword, perfect love, perfect love casteth
out fear. No fear of wrath, no fear of
judgment. Christ has taken care of that.
God enables us. to set our affections on things
above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. What a glorious picture of our
Lord on Calvary's cross given to us in the words of Job. To know God is to have him reveal himself
to us. If he reveals himself, it'll be by his word. God has made foolishness the
wisdom of this world. God is pleased to use what the
world calls foolishness, preaching of the gospel, to save them which
believe. Faith comes by hearing, hearing
comes by the word of God. This is God's word. Oh, for the
grace to just bow and believe on him, to rest in him. Tom, you come and close service,
please. 116, number 116. Oh say can you see by the dawn's
early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's ? How does that message languish
? ? Which once was light as gold ? ? What thou, my Lord, hast
suffered ? ? Was all for sinners gained ? Oh, here I fall, my Savior, tis
I deserve a place. Look on me with my favor, how
safe to be. For this thy dying sorrow, thy
pity without end, O make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,