It's a delight to be here. I've
enjoyed this very much. I've enjoyed your fellowship.
I bring greetings from Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in the Dalles,
Oregon. And they wanted me to say hello
to you. And I just had a text from Brother Gary Shepard. He
wanted me to greet you also. Well, turn with me, if you would,
to the book of Job this morning, the book of Job. I was at Brother DJ Ward's. Bible
conference many years ago over there in Louisville, Kentucky,
and he had an old gray-haired preacher. Now at the time, I
wasn't near as gray-haired as I am today, but he had an old
gray-haired preacher, and that preacher had 66 points to his
message. He preached from every book of
the Bible. And he pointed out how Christ
is declared in every book of the Bible. Well, I had a tape
of that for some time, but I've lost it. And I wish I still had
it because he covered it so delightfully. It caused you to rejoice. And
after the service, I went up to him and I says, brother, thank
you for that message so much. And you know what that man, he
had a beard on or a mustache. He kissed me on my lips and said,
thank you. Now, ladies, you that have to
kiss men with a mustache. I love you. If you can't, you
know, Brother Henry Mahan said, if we can't laugh together, we
won't cry together. We just won't. Well, join me in the book of
Job this morning. I'd like to say a few words about
the gospel in Job, the gospel in Job. We don't have many other
verses to share with you except those that are brought out here
in the book of Job this morning. It's a great book. To me, it
declares the gospel in such clarity. It shares with us the good news
in such clarity. And as we look here, we find
that not only does the book of Job share with us that gospel,
but we find out there are several verses here that we just rejoice
in, that we just find comfort in. One of them is found here
in the book of Job 1, verse 21, and it says, Job said, naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither.
The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. And he said that with conviction.
If you'll turn with me at another place in Job chapter 9, Job chapter
9 verse 33, we have this recorded for our benefit. Job chapter
9 verse 33, neither is there any daze man betwixt us. You know, Job recognized that
there was an absolute necessity for us to have someone that went
between us and God. We need someone that can make
friendship between us and God. We need that advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We are out of, we sinned against
a holy God. And we offended a holy God. And there's only one way that
he can ever be settled down against our sin and that is we have an
advocate. And he, I liked a brother DJ
Ward shared with me one time. He said, I just love going into
the courtroom of God. He has this great authority there,
but you know what? My lawyer is the judge's son. You can't have it any better,
can you? All right, and then finally, if you turn with me
over here to the book of Job chapter 19, we just love this
passage of scripture. You do too. As we think about
what Job had to say here in Job chapter 19, verse 25, it tells
us here, It says, You know, from Job's
perspective, Christ hadn't come the first time, and he's writing
about the second time, coming back. And the latter day shall stand
upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God." He recognized that the Messiah
was almighty God. The one who saved him by his
grace was almighty God. Well, let's go back, if you would,
to the book of Job chapter 1, as we quickly and hurriedly Go
through this book and look at the gospel as it's presented
here. You know, when we look at Job
1, we find that Job, there is a greatness about Job. He is
quite an individual. As it declares here in Job 1,
he said, let me get to Job. It says, there was a man of the
land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and
upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil. And we
go down through here, he is so concerned about his family, he
has such a position as being wealthy and having a family,
and he is concerned about his family, and it tells us as we
drop down, would you turn with me there to the book of Job chapter
two? In Job chapter two, It tells us there in verse 3, God says,
and the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant
Job, that there is none like him in the earth? There is nobody
like my servant Job. You know, he, to me, reminds
me of a position that Adam had before the fall. No man like
him, created in the image of God. God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life and he became a living soul. There was no one
that had the control that he did. No one had the prestige
that he did. No one had the place that he
did, the Garden of Eden. And no one had the visitation
like he did. God came down in the cool of
the evening and visited with Adam. So we have a picture here
in Job that there's no man like him. God said that. You know
the very next thing that happens to Job? Job fell. We follow Job
and one day his entire family, his entire possessions, and his
health dies, is taken away from him. He has nothing left. He is a man full of sores. You know, that just tells me
about the fall. There was not one bit of Job
that was not touched, and there was not one bit of the human
race that was not touched by the fall of Adam. Everything. All the possessions, all the
livelihood, everything, family, was also destroyed in the fall
with Adam. Job got word, you know, all of
your camels were out here, and they were taken away. All your
sheep were taken away, and in fact, all your family was gathered
together in one place, and the wind came and caved it in, and
they're all dead. There was just three or four
people that out of the whole thing escaped and says, I'm alone,
left to escape to tell you the news. And Job was just momentarily,
the boils. It touched his flesh. You know,
we deal with that every day. Their brother and sister dealing
with the passing of their nephew. We deal with that every day.
Every time the paper comes out, we deal with that. Our families,
as we get older, there's less of them. We just deal with that. Our parents, our brothers, our
sisters. It affected the flesh. It was
terrible what happened in the Garden of Eden. It affected us
in every capacity. We have offerings made in the
Old Testament. If a boil broke out on your face,
It's so serious. And you know, as we look at the
Lord Jesus Christ, we find out he didn't ever have a pimple.
He never went through any of the trouble that we went through
as growing up. He didn't have any of the lusts
that we have growing up. He was tempted in all ways that
we are yet without sin. Now, the very next thing after
Job is in his terrible, terrible condition, it tells us that three
friends come to encourage him. You know what that reminds me
of? We get religion. Somebody's going to come to help
us that don't know the first thing about helping us. That's
exactly what religion does. They don't know the first thing
about helping us, and then they offer all this help. Well, these
three friends, they come. They come, and in chapter 2,
verse 11, notice this with me. And now when Job's three friends
heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came, every
one from his own place, Eliphaz the Timonite, the Bildad the
Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, for they had made an appointment
together to come and mourn with him and to comfort him. And when
they lifted up their eyes afar off, they knew him not. They
lifted up their voice and wept, and they rent every one his mantle
and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon
the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word
unto him, for they saw his grief was very great. We don't know
what to say. And then we break into chapters
of these three guys giving Job advice that is all wrong. Oh, the terrible advice. You
know, we find the disciples of the Lord Jesus were caught up
in that one time when they saw a blind man and they asked Jesus,
who did sin, this man or his parents? Now, it doesn't mean
that they didn't have sin, but they were looking at some terrible
sin that one of them committed, and that's why they had this
affliction. This man had that affliction of blindness. You
know what the Lord answered? He said, neither of them, but
it's for the glory of God. Well, these three friends, they
have three rounds. of talking to Job and Job in
his rebuttal, going back and forth and back and forth. The
friend of Job, well, there is a verse of scripture over here
that shares something about those friends. It tells us here in
Job chapter 16. Would you look there with me?
Job chapter 16. As we look back, we find here
Job answered and said, I have heard many such things. Miserable
comforters are all of you. You're miserable comforters.
And you know what? In retrospect, we find out that
everybody that came to us in our condition before Christ came
to us, before the gospel was brought to us, was miserable
comforters. You know what they wanted? More,
more, more, more, more. There's a passage of scripture
in the Proverbs that says that the horse leech has two daughters,
and they cry, Give, give. You know what a leech is? That's
a blood sucker. That's something that gets attached
to you and sucks blood out of you. They used to be used in
medicine. It still is more effective than ever before on amputations. But they're blood suckers. And
all they cry is, give me more, give me more. And that's just
what religion does. Give me more of your time. Give
me more of your money. Give me more of your efforts.
Come down here five, six, seven days a week and we'll get together
and we'll study the Bible and all the study is nothing. It's worthless. Oh, let's go
to the law. Let's find out what it has to
say to us. Let's go to this. Let's go to that. Let's prove
God wrong on all of his word with regard to election. Well,
these three terrible, miserable comforters came to Job, and they
spoke, and Job would respond, and then they would speak again,
and Job would respond, and then another one would come along
and speak, and Job would respond, and so forth. You know, there
happens to be one other person, and I love this guy. Now at the
beginning, I didn't love him. I don't love, when I was in religion,
I didn't like anybody telling me the truth. And here we have
a guy that's going to tell him the truth. I love him. As we
go over here, round after round, three different rounds, and then,
They ceased to answer. Turn with me to the book of Job
chapter 33. Job, you're gonna have to read
all the in between. Job chapter 33, verse one, excuse me, chapter
32, verse one. So these three men ceased to
answer Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then was kindled the wrath of
Elihu, the son of Beritel, the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram
against Job was his wrath kindled because he justified himself
rather than God. You know, it's interesting that
Elihu, his name is so important. He is my God is what his name
means. He had some knowledge about the
God of heaven and he's going to share this knowledge about
the God of heaven. And he brings the truth to Job
like nobody else had ever brought the truth to Job. He brings the
truth of someone else's righteousness that is required. You know, we
must have a perfect righteousness to stand before God. It has to
be absolutely perfect. There cannot be one more in it.
And you know, when we talk about our righteousness, we find out
our righteousness is marred because it's self-righteousness. And
in fact, we find out that our righteousness is like a filthy
rag. So we need a perfect righteousness. We cannot meet God without it.
And we also need someone to deal with our sin. We have a terrible
condition that we inherited from Adam, but we produce ourself,
and that is sin, and we cannot meet God with sin. And we need
a spiritual birth. We need to be born again. which
we cannot produce, we need someone else to take care of that for
us. And so Elihu comes with this, Elihu brings this and mentions
this, and then in verse 3 of that chapter, also against his
three friends was his wrath kindled because he found no answer. They
had found no answer and yet had condemned Job. There was nothing
in what they had to say that was of any benefit, and Job was
still in the same condition that he started in. Oh, he could remember,
no doubt, that there was a time when he had everything, and God
took away everything, purposed it to have him taken away everything. You know, Satan came in the presence
of God by God's permission, and Satan was allowed to do what
he did by God's permission. You know, so many people are
so afraid of that created being, but he is God's Satan. And he's
on a leash. And he is only permitted to do
what he is permitted to do. And he is not omnipotent. And he is not omnipresent. And he is not omniscient. I've
had preachers tell me, he knows what's in your mind before you
do. I said, now, are you kidding me? He doesn't know what's in
my mind. I remember hearing about a preacher.
He never studied before he went up and preached. He just opened
his Bible, dropped, put his finger down because he didn't want the
devil to know what he was gonna preach on before he got in the
pulpit. What? My goodness. Don't fear Satan, fear God. He is a created being. All right. As we go through what Elihu had
to say, he has so much to bring out. Would you turn with me to
the book of Job 36? We just have to, we have to move
along here. Job chapter 36, verses one through
five. This is Elihu again. He says
here in Job 36 verse 1, You know, the Apostle Paul was led by the
Holy Spirit to say over there in the book of 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, as though God did beseech you
by us. That's exactly what Elihu was
saying to Job. I have a message, but it's from
God. You listen to it as if it's from God. Now, a gospel preacher
is going to have God's message, and it's worth listening to.
It's worth paying attention to, because if he's honest, he's
preaching the honest message about God and his free grace
in Christ Jesus. If he brings up anything else,
Write it off. I want to tell you, suffer me
a little, and I'll show thee that I have yet to speak on God's
behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from
afar, and I will ascribe righteousness to my maker. Did Elihu admit
that he had to get his knowledge from somewhere else besides himself?
Absolutely. He didn't have this knowledge
on his own. It was given to him. God gives us of his word of life. He shares with us his word of
life. He teaches us from his word of
life and nothing else. He doesn't ask us to draw on
our foolishness. He says, speak of me and he goes
on to say there in verse four, for truly my word shall not be
false. He that is perfect in knowledge
is with thee. Now notice verse five. This is
what a wonderful statement that Alihu says about God. And this is the statement that
a gospel preacher will mention about God. God is not limited. God is not held in a box by human
will or purpose. He says, behold, God is mighty. You know, if a preacher preaches
anything else but God is mighty, don't listen to him. He's not
worth listening to. We need a God that's mighty.
We have some terrible conditions that need to be dealt with, and
God alone can deal with them. God is mighty, and despiseth
not any. He is mighty in strength and
wisdom. This is the first time in this.
Now, don't take me wrong. I think Job was saved before
this all happened, but he's just a wonderful illustration about
people in their position, losing their position, and having someone
give poor advice and poor advice and poor advice, and then God
sends somebody along who knows something. And here in Elihu,
he knows something. God's mighty. You're worthless. God's mighty, you're powerless,
God's mighty. And then it says in verse six,
he preserveth not the life of the wicked, but giveth right
to the poor. So God is in this, he is mighty,
behold, God is mighty. Turn with me if you would, another
chapter over the book of Job chapter 37. And there in verse
23, Job chapter 27, excuse me, 37 verse 23, touching the almighty, We cannot find him out. Watch the person who says, I
understand God. Put a mark on him, because he
doesn't know anything. A gospel preacher like Elihu
is going to say, we cannot find him out. Who will you compare
God with? You know, I used to make the
foolishness about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and, you know, one was like ice, and one was like water, and one
was like steam. And a brother shared with me,
he says, you know, we can't use any of those illustrations because
to what will you compare God? Nothing. There is no comparison. There is no comparison in this
world or out of this world about God. He said, they're touching
the Almighty, we cannot find him out. He is excellent in power
and in judgment and in plenty of justice. He will not afflict. This is the gospel preacher sharing
with Job the message of the gospel. And this gospel preacher says,
God is mighty. And then we find touching the
Almighty, we cannot find him out. It's a mystery how God works
His business. It's a mystery how He came to
us, came to you, came to me. It's a mystery. How can we figure
it out? My goodness, He had to have all
knowledge in order to do that. He had to have all knowledge
about all of our ancestors to bring us down to the point where
we were born, lost sheep of the house of Israel, and God would
come to us with the gospel. He had the ability to trace that
down from Adam to my parents. about a lost sheep. Now, my mother and father didn't
know the first thing about the gospel, and their parents didn't
know the first thing about the gospel, and I cannot go back
in my family, I cannot go back anywhere and find out anybody
that knew anything. But sometime in the process of
God, a lost sheep was born, and 35 years later, God sent somebody,
an Elihu, who knew something about the mighty God. the God
that works all things after the counsel of his own will, sent
a person that knew something. Now, that person didn't know
anything on his own because Elihu said, I got this from somewhere
else. I don't have this on my own. I couldn't come to this
conclusion on my own. All I could do on my own is come
to the conclusion that I have to be saved by my works. And
then we find out, absolutely not. We have to get that from
somewhere else. All right. along here, Job chapter
38 verse 1. Now this, it just blew my doors
off. This just, it just, oh my goodness. You know as Elihu preached those
chapters and brought out the greatness of God, the power of
God, the righteousness of God, the goodness of God, the blessings
of God, here in chapter 38 something happens that changes Job all
together. And it tells us here, this is
what's going to happen when the preaching of the gospel goes
on and there's one of God's lost sheep that hears it. Then the Lord answered, oh, my
goodness, get a hold of that, that the Lord would talk to him. that the Lord would talk to Job.
Now Elihu is out of the scene now. You know, as we mentioned
the other night, our responsibility is right here. That stops. We
pray that once it goes out, there's something like this happen. The
Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said, The revelation of Jesus
Christ, the God of heaven, declaring Himself, who He is, what He came
to do, and how He's going to save His people from their sins. The Lord answered Job. Now, as we follow this out, we
find that the Lord spoke to Job about many... Were you there
when I created... Were you there when I created
the eagle? Were you there when I created the Leviathan? Were
you there? You know, Job had to say, nope,
nope, nope, nope. In fact, he does say that in
this sense. Job chapter 40, verse 3. Job chapter 40, verse one, moreover
the Lord answered Job and said, shall he that contendeth with
the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him
answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and said, did you read
that? Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? I will
lay my hand upon my mouth. Shut me up. I have no more self-righteous
answers to give to God. I stand reproved by the Almighty. I am vile. You know, when we
look that word up, we find that's pretty bad. Doesn't mean that
he has a little problem. It means he has a whole big problem.
Everything about him is vile in the eyes of God. Behold, I
am vile. You know, as this goes on, let's
turn over here to the book of Job chapter 42. Job chapter 42. The Lord continues on in this
conversation and shares with him more of the grace of God,
declares unto him more about his mightiness, his power, his
ability to save, and save completely, not just save for a moment, not
just save for a day, not just save as long as we're good or
keep the law, but save for time and for eternity. And there in
Job chapter 42, we read these words, Job's words, Job chapter
42, then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do everything. and that no thought can be withholden
from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel
without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that
I understood not things too wonderful for me which I knew not. Here
I beseech thee, and I will speak. I will demand of thee and declare
thou unto me. I have heard of thee with the
hearing of the ear. I was thankful for those times
that I heard with the hearing of the ear. But Job went on to
say, now my eye seeth thee. It went from here to here. God
is gracious. He's not going to waste his word.
He's not going to waste his time. He's not going to waste anything.
He does all things on purpose. And here we have Job going through
all this experience. He had such wealth and power
and authority. And he had his family. He had
all these possessions. And God in his providence let
him lose. In fact, he purposed him to lose
everything he had, even his health. And God sent him three religious
people. They were religious to the core
and they could not help him. And then God sent him a gospel
preacher, and that gospel preacher talked to him about the Lord
of heaven, the God of heaven. That's who we need to talk about,
the God of heaven, one that is mighty in power. And then that
one mighty in power came and spoke to Job person to person. And Job, when he heard that one
speak to him person to person, says, I am vile. And then he said, I have heard
of you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth you. Now what's the results of that
in Job's life? Look there at verse 12 of this
last chapter, verse 12. It says, so the Lord blessed
the latter end of Job more than the beginning. You know, as we
look back and say, oh man, if Adam hadn't of sinned, just think
what a nice world it would have been. If he hadn't got caught
up in that, if he had not got rebelled against God, how nice
it would be. You know what? The latter end
is going to be better than the beginning because God's church,
his holy people are going to know grace. They're going to
know the ministry of God Almighty in saving them by His power,
that He would direct His minister to go to His people and preach
the gospel unto them, and then He would follow up by appearing
to them Himself. Oh, what a declaration it is.
Behold, the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his
beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and
1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 she-asses, and he also had seven
sons and three daughters. You know what? He had twice that
many because all those that God took for him are still his. He had all of this returned to
him, and then we have that word, the Lord blessed the latter end
of Job more than the beginning. Oh, it was terrible that Adam
fell, and there's no question about it. And it was absolute,
total disobedience against God. But God had a way to bring glory
to him out of that. So, the gospel in Job. begun high, went low, had three
friends come to him that didn't know the first thing about the
gospel, and God raised up a gospel preacher and says, I'm gonna
tell you about a God that's almighty. And when that gospel preacher
got through, there's nothing else said about him. We have
the Lord appeared unto him. The Lord spoke to him face to
face. The Lord gave him grace, brought him out of the pit, Job
said, I'm vile. That's a wonderful thing. I'll
tell you when people tell me how good they are, oh boy, you
haven't seen a thing. Oh, what a sinful man I am. I
know. I know. And then we're able to
say, as Job did, I've heard of you, but now I see you. And then
we find out what we have now is so much better than what we
had in Adam before the fall. God bless you.