I really want to preach from that passage. Let's look at it a little bit, and then if I run out of something to say, we'll look at the psalm I was going to look at. Job 42. There's a beautiful picture here of an illustration of how the Lord brings us to repentance, of what repentance is, what faith is, and what the Lord gives you when he brings you to cast all your care on the Lord Jesus. Job 42 begins here, and these first six verses, I want to consider a sinner that's being drawn to the Lord Jesus. We all know that trouble Job, that came upon Job. And whenever the Lord is purposed to draw one of his people, and he's everlastingly loved, someone Christ has redeemed, when he's drawing his child, it's a time of suffering. It's not physically what Job endured, but spiritually it can be very painful like what Job endured because everything that you had and everything you had confidence in is like Job having all these riches and his children and his house and all these things, his servants, all these things that Job thought was his life. We have a lot of things in this world. Before the Lord saves you, you think your life is in a bank account, and a career, and children, and a home, and all these earthy things, and you think that's life. We weren't put here on this earth just to accumulate those things. The Lord said, if a man gained the whole world and lose his own soul, would have been a life that was just in vain. The Lord will save his people, but we're just like the rest of this world. At first, we think life is in all these things. We think that's why we're here, is just to accumulate all we can and all of that. And when the Lord begins to draw you, it's painful. It's a trial like what the Lord went through. But here's where the Lord brings you, right here. He brings you to the Lord so that you confess, I've spoken things that I didn't understand. Verse three, who is he that had counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not things too wonderful for me which I knew not. If a man's religious, that's twice dead. A man that's dead in his sins and now he's dead with a religious covering, That man has to be brought to see everything he's spoken, everything he believed in, he didn't understand anything. And even if a man's irreligious, you have to be brought to see that we don't understand God. Unless the Lord give you an understanding, unless he create a new heart and give you faith and a revelation of the Lord Jesus, we don't know anything, can't know anything. When the Lord brings you to behold the Lord Jesus, when he brings you to seek Christ, this is when he brings you to say what David confessed right here. He said, I've heard of thee, verse five, I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. When they put dust and ashes on themselves, they were signifying their total weakness, they were signifying death, And that's the symbol here. The Lord brings you to see, when he brings you to see Christ, when you see that the Lord had to send his own son, the only way the Lord could be just in saving his people was that God had to come down and take flesh like unto his brethren. And the Lord had to be made under that law and he had to serve for his people. And the Lord had to go to the cross and 1 Corinthians 5.21 says, 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin. Our perfect Savior, our spotless, sinless Savior, the only man that ever walked this earth holy and just with no sin. And he willingly went to that cross, and for God to be righteous in judging him, he first made him sin. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of all his people. And with the sin of his people on him, he made him a curse. The only way we could be redeemed from that curse, you want to see the curse? Look to the cross. We deserved what our Savior took in place of his people. That's a living hell, being cast out of God's presence, forsaken of God, utter darkness, having no one with you, everybody turned their back on the Savior. And our Lord suffered that because he was suffering the justice of God in place of his people. And by him bearing that, he really and truly made his people the righteousness of God in him. And when the Lord brings you to see, that's the only way he could be just and justifies people. And he brings you to see by that how just he is. When he laid on him the sin of his people and sin was on his son, our Lord wouldn't clear his son. That's how just God is. So he brings you to see yourself in light of Christ. And when you see yourself in light of him, you begin to see, I've never spoken of right. What I thought of God is not God. What this world is preaching concerning Christ is not even remotely near who Christ is. Pink, Arthur Pink said, the gospel that's being preached in this day no more resembles the truth of Christ than a candle resembles the noonday sun. And that's true, that this world's gospel is not the gospel. It says that God wants to save you, and he's trying to save you, and Christ did all he could, and he basically cleared the slate. Now, if you want salvation, it's up to you. But see, that puts it all in your hands, and that gives you room to glory. And the Lord's gonna make us see, if we were in that, or not in that, he's gonna bring you to see your sin, that you are the sinner, that you cannot speak a right, you knew nothing a right. And he does this by making you behold the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. He makes you see the justice of God in Christ. And that's when you see, I'm a sinner. And God speaks and declares, there's only way you can come to God. You cannot come to God any other way than through faith in his son. We have to have the Lord Jesus. We have to have his righteousness. We have to have his holiness. We have to have redemption in him. And even the Lord has to give you a new spirit and he has to give you the faith and grant you repentance to come to him. But this is what he does right here. He brings you to behold him and you come to the place where you say, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. What do you repent of? Some preach that you just repent of certain sins or this sin or that sin. Brethren, repentance is an entire change of mind. You realize everything that you thought was wrong. That's what you realize. You realize you can't trust you. You can't trust your works. You realize that those are the worst of your sins. thinking you knew something about God, thinking you had a righteousness by your works or that you were holy by your works. The Lord makes you see that's the worst of your sin, trying to come to God by something you did. And he turns you from that, he turns you from trusting yourself. He makes you to see that you are sin. That's what you are in your nature, you're sin. And the only thing that can come from a sin nature is sin. You remember when the Lord told the, he told the Pharisees, you tithe cumin and anise, these lighter things. And he said, you've omitted the weightier matters, like justice and righteousness and faith and mercy. You see, they, the world teaches that you owe the law of God. That's what's pictured in the tithing of mint and anise and cumin. You have to give. I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about this is what the world's gospel is. You have to give to the law. You have to try to serve the law and obey God. But see, those are the lighter things of the law. The picture is they bring the law down and they deal with things that are light and easy for a sinner moral stories and moral things so that you feel like you've done those things. But they omit the weightier matters of the law. The law requires perfect righteousness. That's the weightier matter. The law requires a man has to be perfectly right before God in thought, word, and deed, having never sinned, having a complete, total, holy heart with no sin, no impurity whatsoever. That's the weightier matters of the law. That's what the law requires. The law requires justice, meaning the soul that sinneth must die. Not only do you have to fulfill the law in giving it what it demands, But if you've broken it, you gotta give the law what it demands to the lawbreaker. That's what Christ did. He not only gave the law what the law demanded by his perfect obedience, he gave the law what it demanded in that he gave his life for his people. He laid down his life and died under the justice of God for his people. And mercy, remember when the Lord said through, I believe it was through Malachi. He said, will the Lord take delight in you offering a bunch of bullocks? Will he be pleased with you offering all these great sacrifices? He's told you what the Lord delights in. Do justly with thy God. What is that? It's to come to God and confess, Lord, I'm the sinner. I justly deserve I deserve to be rejected. I deserve to be cast out. It's to love mercy with thy God. What is that? It's coming to God saying, Lord, except you have mercy on me, I'll perish. I can't be saved except you have mercy on me. It's loving. It's walking humbly with our God. It's coming bowed down to the feet of Christ and it's casting all into his hand to save you. That's what the Lord was dealing with when he said, you're given the lighter things, you're given the law, what you can think you can give, cumin and anise and these other things, but you've omitted justice, you've omitted righteousness, you've omitted faith. We have to come to God and confess, I'm the sinner. We have to come to God and confess, Lord, I need mercy and come Not boasting and demanding, but bow down, loving mercy with God, casting your care upon him in faith. He said, Lord said, this you ought to have done. You ought to have given the lighter, but you got to give the major too. You got to give the weightier matters. Only Christ did that. Only Christ gave the law everything it demands, and the only way we can come to God is in him. So that's where he brings you, I repent dust and ashes. I can't trust me. anything about me to come to God. Now, let's change here now, the picture. Now, we're gonna look at these three friends as the sinner who's been brought to dust and ashes. These three friends. And we're gonna look at Job as a picture of Christ. He said in verse seven, After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, my wrath is counted against thee and thy two friends, for you have not spoken to me the thing that's right as my servant Job hath. They had come to Job when he was going through this severe trial, and they judged him, and they condemned him, and they cast it into his teeth. Everything Job said, they cast it back on him. Now that's bad enough when one man does it to another man. But here's where the Lord brings us. That's what we did to Christ. In all our years of rebellion, that's what we did to Christ. And the rebellion I'm talking about is when we came to a church service and looked into this book, or just in our carnal mind, looked in this book, whether we were religious or not, all our time of unbelief and all our time of walking in darkness, We were judging Christ. We were judging him. We were doing what Job's friends were doing to Job. And when we saw Christ crucified, and we heard about Christ crucified, in our unbelief, in our vain thoughts, we thought of a man that had failed, or we thought of, just in our vain thoughts of who God is, it was all the same as Job's friends judging Job. we didn't speak a right concerning our Lord Jesus, like they didn't speak a right concerning Job. And the Lord said this, therefore, verse eight, therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, and that you have not spoken to me the thing which is right, like my servant Job. The Lord Jesus, these seven bullocks and seven rams, the Lord's not gonna tell you to bring that, but those seven bullocks and seven rams are a picture of Christ. He's the offering. He's the sacrifice. But you see, they're bringing those bullocks, and they can't offer them to God. They have to bring them to Job, and Job has to offer them to God. So in that, you have a picture of a believer. We can't come to God. We cannot come to God. We have to come to the Lord Jesus. And we have to trust him to be the one offering that he made to God wherein God will accept us. We have to come to Christ and trust Christ is the offering God is pleased with. And let me tell you, he's the offering God's pleased with. There is no coming to God any other way. God is pleased with his son. He sent his son and his son pleased God in all things. And God's pleased with this one offering, the Lord Jesus. And we have to come to Christ and bow down to Christ and the Lord, this Joe praying for them, that's Christ interceding for his people. He intercedes for his people. He's the go-between between the fallen sinner and the holy God. He's God and man, so he can bring God and men together in him by his faithfulness, by his obedience, by what he accomplished. And so the Lord draws you to Christ to trust Christ to represent you to God. They went to Job, and they were trusting Job to represent them to God. God said, him I will hear, Christ God will hear, but he won't hear you and me outside of Christ. Somebody asked me just this week, Does God hear us when we've prayed before he saved us? No, because we didn't come in Christ. We did not. We said prayers. We said, Lord, Lord. You know the word in scripture that's translated Baal? You know what that word means? Lord. That's what it means. We said Lord, Lord, but without faith, God-given faith in Christ, we were just saying Baal, Baal. That's who the Lord's speaking about. at the end of the Sermon on the Mount when he said, there'll be many of that day that'll say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we do many wonderful works? Didn't we cast out devils? Therein is the problem. You're trusting in what you did. He's trusting in what you did. We can't be saved by what we did. We gotta be saved by what Christ did. And so they come to Job now and they have to trust Job to represent them to God. And so they did, verse nine. To Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuite, and Zophar the Namathite went, and did according as the Lord commanded them. And the Lord also accepted Job. Listen, it doesn't say accepted them. It says he accepted Job. When you come to Christ, you cast all your care on Christ, the Lord's gonna accept Christ You can accept his perfect obedience, his person, his work, and accepts all the people that God put in Christ. Of God are you in Christ Jesus? But he accepts Christ, the one man that pleased God, is the God-man mediator. And we, our acceptance is only because he accepts the Lord Jesus. Are you willing, are you willing to trust as, to put all your eggs in one basket, to put all your hope of salvation in this one man. That's all our hope, isn't it, brethren? If this has all been a lie, well, I won't be worse off than anybody else will be. But I believe this is the truth of God right here, and all my hope is in this one man, that God accepts him. Where is he right now? He arose and he sat down and got right in. You know why? God accepted him. God accepted him. And you know how God's gonna accept his people? Accepted in the beloved. That's the only way. That's Christ. We have to come and bow down to Christ and trust him. God accepted him and he accepts his people in him. And the Lord, verse 10, the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. Well, when our Lord Jesus was on that cross, was he in captivity? Absolutely. The worst captivity anybody's ever been in. He was burying the captivity of his people on that cross. Everything Satan could throw at him, everything wicked men could throw at him, everything wicked angels could throw at him, and he bore that all for his people. and he interceded for his people, and when he said, it is finished, God turned his captivity. Our Lord Jesus, three days later, he came out of that tomb, and he entered into glory, and he sat down on the right hand of God, henceforth expect until his enemies be made his footstool, and they are all gonna be made his footstool, every one of them. His people that he died for are gonna all be brought to bow at his footstool and trust him. And those that are enemies in their mind by wicked works yet going through this life rejecting Christ, they're gonna meet him in the day of judgment and bow and confess he's Lord of Lord and King of Kings to the glory of God. But everybody's gonna bow, everybody's gonna confess. I pray, Lord, do it in grace for you rather than having to come before him in judgment. Today's the day of grace. Today's the day of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus today and he will save you. So he turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Now you think about this concerning Christ. When our Lord Jesus came here, he's God. He's God. Everything's his. He owns everything. You look at Job in the beginning and all that Job had. As God, Christ had everything. But he went back to glory with twice as much as he came with. He went back with all his redeemed people, multitudes and multitudes and multitudes redeemed by his precious blood. He went back to glory with all of them, with all of them. He went back to glory, not only as the glorified son of God, he went back to glory as the glorified God-man mediator. He went back to glory and God gave him as the man, he already had all power, but as the man, God gave him all power over all things in heaven, earth, and under the earth, all powers of things seen and unseen in this world and in the world to come. He went back with twice as much as he came with. And when you believe on Christ, when you trust Christ, your latter ends are gonna be better than your beginning. You're gonna have way more than you started with either. We lost everything in the fall. We come into this world, and as we go through this world, we think we're rich. We're bombs. Worse than a bomb in the street if we don't have Christ. I don't care what you gather up in this world. But when the Lord saves you, he gives you far more than you lost in the fall. He gives you righteousness and holiness and redemption and wisdom. He makes you the son of God. He makes you to know all this was given you. It was a kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world in your father. And the good thing is now, in Adam, we could fall, and we did. But in the Lord Jesus, we can't ever fall. We can't ever be lost because of what Christ did for us. He says there in verse 11, then came there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all that had been of his acquaintance before. That's what's going to happen with Christ. All his people, everybody he laid down his life for is coming to him. They're all coming to him by the grace of God. He said, all that the father gives me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. And what did they do? They did eat bread with him in his house, and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil the Lord had brought upon him. And you're gonna come to him, and you're gonna bow down, and you're gonna thank him for everything he suffered for you. And you're gonna bemoan the fact that he suffered for you. This is what keeps us looking to him and turning from ourselves. If we keep being reminded and remember, What my Savior suffered, he suffered for my sin. When you're conscious that you're about to sin against the Lord, one of the ways the Lord will make his child mortify your flesh is reminding you, the Lord laid down his life for my sin. For God's child, that doesn't make you say, well, I'll go ahead and commit this sin, he already paid for it. For God's child, if it's blessed by the Lord in the heart, that'll make you say, I'm not gonna sin against him. It doesn't mean you're never going to, but when the Lord turns you, he always turns you by making you behold what Christ did for you, and that's what mortifies this flesh. And they bemoaned him and they comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Every man gave him a piece of money and everyone an earring of gold. When we come to the Lord, everything that we have, the Lord gave it to us. But when the Lord brings you to Christ, now, what you called your own before, what you thought was yours, now you see, the Lord gave it all to me. And it's the Lord's. Just like they gave what they had to Joe, everything you have is the Lord's. Remember David, he gave all this abundance for the building of that temple. And he prayed and he said, Lord, everything I have, you gave it, every bit of it. And all I've done is just give you what you gave to me. And you gave me the grace, you gave me the heart to give you what you gave to me. So everything now that we have, we know, came from the hand of the Lord. And so now we'll be used of the Lord for the furtherance of his gospel in his house. Verse 12, so the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, and that'll be so of you. You'll see he blessed you more than anything you've had in the beginning. That's so of every trial we go through, too, because because of what you've been taught in the trial. The Lord didn't say you're not gonna go through the flood. He didn't say you're not gonna go through the fire. Isaiah 43, he said, but the flood will not overflow you and the fire will not burn you. Why? Because the Lord's with you. Just like the three that were thrown into that raging fire. And they looked in there and they said, didn't we throw three in there? There's another one in there with them. Christ is in the fire with his people, always. That's the only way you're gonna go through the fire. That's the only way the flood's not gonna overflow you and the fire's not gonna burn. Christ is with you. He already bore it. He already bore the wrath and justice of God. That's not what's happening when you're suffering in the trial. It's the Lord teaching you. And here's what he's teaching you. When he's refining you in the fire, he's not refining your flesh. Your flesh is not getting better. Your flesh is getting worse. He will restrain some of our sins and we won't sin like we did and all. He's gonna make the old man die day by day. But that's not what's being refined. The refining is your faith. Your faith. Look at 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. I got a point here. when you're preaching like this, you're gonna forget what your point was. I got a point, but let me forget it. 1 Peter 1, look here, verse six. You greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be. The Lord only sends you through the fire if need be. If need be, you're in heaviness through manifold temptations, trials, suffering, tribulations. that the trial of your faith, that's what's being refined, your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes. Faith is the most precious thing we have, much more precious than gold. Gold's gonna perish. Faith that God gives will never perish until it's not needed anymore, until you see Christ and you're with him. But he's refining your faith, though it be tried with fire, that it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. You know what he's doing through this fire? Go back there with me to Job 42. Here's what he's doing. The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning. At the end of the trial, You see, you see Christ a little better. You know he's your all a little more, just a little more. You know that he's all your acceptance with God. You know he's never gonna leave you, he's never gonna forsake you. You know that the affliction was to bring you to that end, and so it was only good for you. It taught you to believe on Christ, love one another. It's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might learn your statute, that I might learn to trust you. Love my brethren. And so whatever the Lord works in the trial, I mean, whatever you suffer in the trial, your latter end is always better than the beginning. You trust yourself a little less, you trust Christ more. That's what he's doing, he refining that faith, the refining of that faith. All our sins are mixed with that faith so that we thank Christ and this and that and the other things important. The fire refines that, that other thing is, Nope, that's not important, only Christ. He gonna keep on refining that faith, refining that faith, getting rid of the impurities mixed with it, till there's nothing but you and Christ, and then you won't need to faith you with him. That's what he's doing, weaning you from the world, making you behold Christ is all. That's why the latter ends are always better. And so he had all these sheep and all these camels and oxen and asses, sons and daughters, and see brethren, All that is is fruit of the Lord. It's not the Lord giving you stuff in this world. He may, he will provide what you need in this world, but all of that sheep and oxen and all of these things right here, what that is is all seeing Christ more and more, seeing the riches you have in the Lord Jesus is what that is. Trying to see if there's anything else I see here. And the sons and daughters, you're gonna have, when the Lord brings you to Christ, you find out you got sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, far more than you ever had. That's the Lord's promise. He said, in this life, you have houses, you have brethren, you have fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and after that, you'll have eternal glory with him. That's the Lord providing everything you need in this world. Everything you need in this world. All right, I pray the Lord bless that. Job died being old and full of days. Where was he after that? With the Lord. That's what is gonna happen with his people. He's gonna keep you. You're gonna serve the exact amount of days he's appointed. And when his life's over, you'll be with the Lord. Won't that be a happier ending than living for this world? and just thinking the world's in stuff and passing through and meeting Christ and being cast out. Oh, I pray he'd give you grace to come to him today, repent from anything in you, know, believe that Christ must present you and intercede for you and present you to the Father. And you come to him and trust him. The latter end will be far better than the beginning. And as for you that believe him too, every trial, He never stops teaching what he taught us in the first hour. The first hour, he said, don't trust you, trust my son, and your latter end was better, because he gave you faith to trust him. That's what he's teaching us in every trial. Don't trust you, don't lean to your own understanding, cast it all into Christ's hand, and when he's done with you and refined you, the latter end's gonna be better than the beginning. All right, let's pray to the Lord. Father, thank you for this word. The scripture reading, thank you for giving a message. Lord, you're so good to us and so abundant to be merciful and gracious to us. You just keep giving us the gospel, keep giving us faith to believe, and you keep refining us and teaching us we need Christ and him only. Lord, bless your word tonight. Make it go forth in power. and accomplish your purpose. Lord, make your people believe you. We pray you call your lost sheep. And Lord, those that are suffering and in trials, may you bless this word to comfort them. Teach them, Lord, to not look to self, but to look to you and trust you. And you will give them more in the end than in the beginning. Lord, thank you for being faithful. In the name of our Savior, we ask you, amen.